Death and the Maiden
by Gene Dark
Summary: AU story from the Landsmeet to the End Game, including the events of Awakenings. General Loghain and Warden-Commander Tabris campaign against the Blight. NOW COMPLETE. Re-posted while I tweak, edit, and split a monster final chapter into two.
1. Chapter 1: Enemy at the Gates

One autumn night, Rilian's tent was pitched out of the wind against a cliff-face, above the Hafter River winding its way east, towards Denerim. On the slopes between, the soldiers of Redcliffe had felled trees for cook-fires. Dusk was falling, eddies of pure mountain air pierced through the heavy mingled smells of wood-smoke, broth, horses, leather, and sweat. On wooden boxes, Rilian and her companions sat warming their wet boots at the blaze of their fire. The steamy reek of Oghren's feet blended for her with the other homely and familiar scents of war: as familiar by now as the smells of sewage, rats, and gruel she had grown up with.

"Well," said Arl Eamon, who still looked pale and drawn after Teyrn Loghain's poison, "I told you the Teyrn's patience would wear out before mine. He's sent for us."

Rilian sat, bolt upright, intense gaze fixed on the Arl. "All of us?" She darted a look at Alistair, beside her, thinking it would not be wise to bring the would-be King to Denerim.

"Not even Loghain would dare arrest the last living descendent of Theirin blood," the Arl said.

"If you take Alistair, how about the rest of us?" Oghren asked. Felsi had just moved to Denerim - he would have liked to be seeing more of her.

"We will need to leave the army here, or give the darkspawn free rein to move north," Rilian told him firmly.

"They say a watched pot never boils," Oghren muttered irritably.

Alistair, as usual, stuck up for Rilian. "They say too that when you take your eyes off it, it boils over."

The red-bearded dwarf looked at him with irritation - it was alright for him; _he _was getting enough of what he wanted.

He was getting, at least, a love he would not have changed for any other. The rest was his secret - he had come to what terms he could with it. Chastity, restraint, devotion to higher things - with these words he tried to explain to himself his meetings with a soul-rooted reluctance, too deep to suffer questioning. Perhaps life in the Alienage had scarred Rilian; perhaps the sacrifices necessary to become a Warden. Most of the time, however, she was trusting, affectionate, supportive; she simply did not think romance very important.

She shared everything with him. She talked of men and elves, of the conflict between Zathrien and the Lady - of his wild and doomed attempt to avenge his children and regain the Elven immortality. She quoted Wynne on what it meant to be a Grey Warden - she retold the gossip of Arl Eamon's servants and of the soldiers. She plotted their horrific defeat at Ostagar, stage by stage, and confided that she believed King Cailan already doomed when Loghain gave the order to retreat. He had been angry at that, and had told her that even if it were true, it didn't change anything. Loghain had still covered his guilt by trying to blame the Wardens, had still sent assassins to kill them, had still poisoned the man who had raised him until the age of ten. Rilian had understood that his loyalty to the Arl and to Duncan would admit no argument.

She talked of the dog she had had back home (a scrawny little mutt she and Shianni had nicknamed Helm-Piddle, because of his habit of getting his own back on the human soldiers who abused him) and the mabari who was more friend than animal; she spoke of words heard in dreams from that great corrupted dragon. At any moment Alistair would be asked what he thought - he was valued as more than a listener. Knowing this, he would pay attention - and be caught up even against his will. Rilian could transmit imagination the way other women could transmit desire. When she sang, with her head tilted up and a little leftward, her eyes seeing what her mind conceived, he would catch an inner glow like a secret lamp, or a dazzling glint through a chink. Sometimes, when she was lit up and full of gratitude for being understood, his love would prompt the right word or touch, and she would soften in his arms, and murmur something in the human-Elvish lingo of her girlhood, and all would be well between them; or as well as it was ever going to be.

"The darkspawn are a threat, yes - but it worries me to think of you going to Denerim alone," came the soft, accented voice one of the three other women in camp - Rilian's fellow red head, the bard Leliana. Her beautiful face - softer and rounder than Rilian's sharp angularity - was drawn into a frown; her clear blue eyes intense. "Teyrn Loghain will have his fingers in many plots, and you will not know whom to trust. Let me go in ahead - someone not known to the Teyrn - someone who can keep an ear to the ground. A bard is welcome anywhere - and if you need my other skills...you know it would be a privilege."

Rilian knew her well enough by now to understand the skills she was referring to. The great re-curved bow slung over one shoulder was not Leliana's only weapon. The others, unseen, were far more lethal. She met the human woman's remarkable gaze.

"Thank you, my friend," she said softly, "There is no-one I would sooner trust. But I must do this myself."

Leliana swallowed a sigh, torn somewhere between exasperation and affection. There was no subtlety in Rilian. She remembered a conversation they had had, months back during the safer times - the getting-to-know-each-other times - when Ostagar had fallen but the Blight still seemed some distance off, when they had adventured together in their quest for allies; before Rilian had been named Champion of Redcliffe. She had told Rilian something of what it meant to be a bard - of the deceit and seduction and manipulation that had been Leliana's life's-blood - and Rilian had teased her by asking how this would help them defeat the darkspawn. It would certainly have helped now, she thought sourly - but, no, Rilian was either unwilling to risk a friend or simply preferred the idea of murder by sword to murder by poison. As if one was any less dead than the other.

Leliana often asked herself why she stayed - here, in this smelly camp, in a country better known for its dogs than its culture. Why did she spend whatever time they had together coaching Rilian in singing and storytelling. Rilian's voice - low, raw, untrained - possessed a sweetness and clarity that struck through to the soul; but she was far too much a warrior to make a bard. Rilian's favourites were the songs of heroism, adventure and comradeship - she sang these not with art, as did the minstrels of Orlais, but as someone who had been there and understood everything. Nothing about the young elf was for show, and her versions of Leliana's songs were marked not by ignorance - between them Leliana and Wynne had seen to that - but by a perfect innocence. Leliana felt bewildered by the misuse to which, with open eyes, she was dedicating her own talents. She would never forget the woman who had made _her_ a bard - yet the lessons she had shared with Marjolaine engaged her heart less than these, when all the arts she had to teach were flung like wasteful incense on the altar of war.

"Well - it's settled then," Rilian said cheerfully, "Arl Eamon, myself and Alistair will go; I shall leave Ser Perth in command of the army here." And, so saying, she left the tent to relay her orders.

Outside, the elderly Bann Temlen sat with his officers and Ser Perth of Redcliffe, on a rocky outcropping patched with moss, watching the Warden approach. Dressed himself with the rough practicality of the northern Bannorn, he could not take his eyes off the slight elf in glittering scale armour, burnished like a dragonfly in the flickering firelight, who greeted them with charming courtesy. (They could not know of the hours of coaching by Leliana and Wynne that had shown Rilian the outward forms of her own ideals; or the way these would slip in the heat of combat into a gutter fighter's repertoire). The months of travel had sunburned her; the clear colour glowed in her face; her hair and eyes reflected the flames like kindling caught with the spark. When fighting she wore a helm with a red plume, to be seen by her men in battle - they must be ready for change of plan whenever the action called for it. When his sergeant had reported the Warden's help during the civil war, when Teyrn Loghain had attempted to seize his lands by force, he had not believed the stories of her deeds - when he had seen her, he had believed still less. But when he watched Arl Eamon's grizzled face, compelled against his own instincts to give the upstart elf respect, and saw the adoration on the faces of Ser Perth and his knights, intent on her every word, he believed at last. He had overheard a conversation between two refugees from Lothering, part of a group that had volunteered to stay with the army as cooks and servants: "A man only lives once; we'd not have done it with the horde so near, only that we heard the Warden was commanding. Is it true that she slew the High Dragon outside of Haven? That she's invulnerable? That Andraste herself deemed her worthy to take the Ashes?" Those who had met the Warden reported it false that she was invulnerable - young as she was, she was already battle-scarred - but swore blind that the rest of it was true.

The tales had run before her. Leading her group away from Lake Calenhad, she had walked round a crag straight into two of Loghain's assassins, and dispatched them both while the men behind were still catching their breath; neither had had time to shout a warning. She had run between two Chasind and a Templar arguing with their swords already drawn, and shoved them apart. During last week's storm, so fierce it had seemed the Maker meant to destroy them all, she had read luck into it; kept them moving, made them laugh. Someone had had his wound staunched with her own cloak; someone else had died in her arms. They called her the Warden, as a title, even though there were two of them - the other warden, the young would-be King, seemed not to mind it, content to follow her without question. None of the soldiers were very great respecters of women's virtue - especially Elven women - yet she seemed to hardly need the great mabari or her companions to keep her safe. It was as though they scarcely thought her a flesh-and-blood woman at all.

"Warden - is it truly wise to go with such a small party to Denerim? I would not wish to risk the Hero of Redcliffe in this way."

A small frown line appeared between the feathery red brows. "There are _two_ heroes of Redcliffe - and two Wardens. Shouldn't you be worrying more about the safety of the future King?"

The handsome, chestnut-haired knight frowned too, not wanting to say what he truly thought. He didn't see a future King - he saw the unwanted by-blow his Arl had thrown out to sleep in the stables when he misbehaved - before finally packing him off to the Chantry at age ten. Now that Eamon's nephew, Cailan, was dead, he suddenly wanted to know the boy again - wanted to push him forward as the King he had never been raised to be. A King who listened to his adopted father's advice - and who might do what Cailan had not and put the barren queen aside in favour of a marriage with Empress Celene and alliance with Orlais. It wasn't hard to guess which member of Eamon's family had given him that idea. But he didn't say any of that, of course.

"Warden," he said carefully, "I would protect the Prince with my life, of course - but it is _you_ the men follow. The Ashes - the Dragon - that's why we won't fail. The knights know you're under special protection. That last battle, against the darkspawn attacking those refugees - by rights, you should have been killed. If your dog hadn't killed that emissary, they wouldn't have scattered. We wouldn't have had time to re-group. No dog behaves like that - singles out the one target that can save us. Those are signs, Warden - omens. We know it. The most important thing we draw from you is faith."

The Warden looked troubled for a moment - looked like she was about to protest. Ser Perth went on: "At Redcliffe Castle, facing those - monsters; we all feared for our lives. But thanks to the amulets you asked the Revered Mother for, none of us was killed."

The Warden looked slightly uncomfortable - almost guilty, Bann Temlen thought. Why? All good commanders know that morale is more important than scrupulous honesty. Rilian closed her mouth on what she had been about to say.

"Warden - if we lose you..."

"You're not going to lose her. I'm going with her to see to it," came a velvety-soft voice from right behind Rilian. Rilian jumped, whirled about - then burst out in startled laughter. All at once, the Warden vanished like a soap-bubble, to be replaced by a delighted Elven girl. "How do you _do_ that, Zevran - just jump out from the shadows like that?"

"I stand in the shadows. Then I step out of them."

"Oh. Well that clears everything right up."

"Just one of my many talents, my dear lady. Do you wish a demonstration of my other skills...no? Perhaps later. For now, I'll content myself with going to Denerim palace - I made a detailed study of the layout while I was there, you know - and watching our friend Loghain. He won't be able to spring any surprises."

"Take him with you," Ser Perth said firmly.

"Don't I get any say in this?"

"Ah- ah," Zevran wagged an admonitory finger, "No time for sweet-talk." He narrowly dodged Rilian's kick, then half-turned; winked at the knight. "She'll always love me best."

Later, Rilian walked through the now-quiet camp, listening to its muted sounds: the soft wailing of a refugee baby, held in its mother's arms - the laughter and curses of a group of soldiers playing cards - the happy barking of Ravenous as he chased shadows. She grinned as she saw what the mabari held in his mouth - Morrigan would not be pleased... Soldiers and civilians called out to her - she felt like the favourite child at a family gathering. _Once, I was_... A wistful smile touched her face. She could still hear, as though it had happened yesterday, the songs they had sung in the Alienage; replay the steps of the wedding dance on the day that should have changed her from girl to woman. She could feel Nelaros' hand on her arm - see the shy smile and the promise in those green eyes as they began the dance of life that had ended with his death. She could almost feel the flutter of the life she had never actually borne: her child, and his. The faces of the men around the campfires blurred in her vision - became a play of light and shadows - insubstantial as ghosts. For a moment, she had the irrational sense that Nelaros and the child were both out there, waiting for her.

If Vaughan Urien had never come to the Alienage - if she had never had to take the Joining - she would not be a warrior. The half-serious training and childhood dreams of adventure would have dissolved into deeper joys: she would have centred a family as her mother had - she would have enjoyed the close friendship of the other Elven women - she would have liked growing into the gentle authority the Elders had. But she could never return to the past. To be one of the Elders, you had to be a wife and mother first; she was barren now, and tainted. Startled, she realised her eyes were wet, and blinked quickly, hoping no-one had noticed. Her past was gone; no use crying over it. And hers was not the only such loss; the only thing to do was go on. Bitterness could not swamp the better memories: her mother's laugh, the feel of her arms, her father's gentleness. They had been - within the limitations of hunger and cold and fear - a family drenched in love. From that love she had found the strength to come back from an easy death at Ostagar, lead others in battle, and care for them after. How had that happened? How had she come to see the human soldiers - perhaps the very ones who might have served a man like Vaughan, and laughed at her resistance - as "her" men? Had it been at Ostagar, before the main battle, when she had helped Mother Boann in the makeshift hospital, though all they could do was ease the passing of those stricken with the taint? They were so small, broken like that - they had called the names of mothers, wives or children... Had it been afterward, when clumsy, loyal, good-hearted Alistair had shown her new perspectives? Or maybe it was just that the campaign conditions - the cold, hunger and fear, the challenge of sticking together to defeat a common enemy - being surrounded by people - was the closest she could get to home. Rilian had never been alone in her life, or safe; wouldn't know what to do with peace, or solitude. Here was the family she had lost, and the love she had lost, and here she would serve.

* * *

The army had been camped outside Denerim for two weeks. The advantage, as Ser Cauthrien well knew, was that the Warden's men were at least keeping the darkspawn at bay. The problem was that the long days of inactivity were adding to the city's already impressive list of problems. Denerim was overcrowded - badly so, with the number of refugees pouring in from the south. And of course the civil war had led to shortages of supply, so that everything from food to water to medicine was strictly rationed. By Teyrn Loghain, naturally. Merchants and farmers had time to become bitter about his confiscation of their goods. Mothers with sick children had cause to complain about the rationing of medicines.

Cauthrien wished some of these whimpering shitholes had the burden of keeping the city in order.

The problem was that the citizens of Denerim simply had nothing to do. As long as the army just sat there with all their heads crammed up the Warden's ass, nobody had any outlet for the long days of pent-up frustration and fear. Tempers grew frayed; grievances multiplied in all directions. Denerim's sewers kept backing up, because the drain-fields weren't adequate to the extra population. The misery in the Alienage had led to violence - Cauthrien had hoped Loghain would let her deal with it, as she had done before - but no, he had given the task to Rendon Howe, which was like setting the cat to guard the mice. Even the city's more comfortable inhabitants - unaware that their misery could be so much worse - were in an ugly mood, and the ugliness was spreading.

Denerim's soldiers, however, were loyal to their General. Many of them had had years to become familiar with his loyalties - to them as well as to King Maric. And most were alive now only because he had taken it on himself to order their retreat from a hopeless position at Ostagar. Such burdens fall only on leaders, Cauthrien thought; that legacy would haunt him the rest of his life and, through history, he would bear it dead. Since she too was alive only because of that order, she supposed she was not impartial - but she would never see what else he could have done.

One way or another, she and the men of Maric's Shield worked to control the pressure building around the Teyrn. As such there was no riot in the city proper - no outbreak of resentment - until someone threw a spark into the tinder of Denerim's mood.

That someone was Arl Eamon.

Cauthrien gave a short, sharp sigh of frustration and anger as she buckled on armour and sword and went to meet her commander and his ever-present shadow. Arl Eamon's political ambition needed to be dealt with – he was exploiting King Cailan's death in the most cynical way possible – but _why_ could Loghain not see that it was his treatment of men such as Bann Temlen that played right into his hands? Proud Ferelden nobles who had willingly fought for Maric's rebellion would not stand for being treated like conscripts – the lands and men they might have volunteered taken by force. In Ferelden plain-speaking was every subject's right and even Kings were proven by deeds; the Banns had followed Maric because he had been their pride and because he had been the kind of man who could make farmers and outlaws and lords fight for him just by smiling at them. The Landsmeet – symbol of Fereldan independence – proved that its leaders were not tyrants but first-among-equals. It astonished her that Loghain – a man more responsible than any other for bringing the Landsmeet back– could not see that. She recalled a favourite story of his – retold during evenings when the two relaxed after drill – about the very first Landsmeet he had attended – and how he had put a damper on things by putting his sword through the chest of one of the pompous stuffed-shirts. She had laughed at the time and said she was sure Bann Donall had deserved it. She wasn't laughing now. Maybe in the midst of saving Ferelden he had lost sight of what it meant to _be_ Fereldan – or was holding on too tight. Or maybe he had never seen it – maybe he had always fought for Maric; the vision he followed Maric's and not his own.

No matter. Cauthrien knew very well why _she_ fought – and it was not in the memory of King Maric but for the man in front of her now, sitting in the dour throne room with Rendon Howe and an abandoned game of chess. He looked like he had aged ten years since Ostagar, and that throne seemed more like a prison.

"Ser," she said bluntly, "Are we really going to let Arl Eamon and his puppets through the gate? Once word gets out that we've got the so-called Hero of Redcliffe and Maric's bastard here, the curfew won't hold. No curfew will hold."

Loghain fixed her with that steel-blue stare that could still frighten her a little and said: "Eamon sniffs a political opportunity. He reminds me of my daughter's little dog - who starts the mabaris fighting, and does nothing himself but yap. Where was he when we broke the back of the Orlesian invasion? Once I make him understand the threat we face, he'll not be so quick to throw his forces behind two children. I'll be able to talk him down."

Cauthrien bit off any further argument. What was holding him together was being the only one who could save Ferelden. With their plans to recruit the Circle mages in ruins - reports had Uldred unleashing abominations on his own Tower - and their emissaries murdered outside Orzammer; with their forces fatally compromised by the Civil War, he just didn't have the hope left to survive doubting himself.

"Indeed," murmured the shadow to Loghain's left, a flame of low cunning burning in the rat's eyes that flickered above cheekbones so sharp they seemed about to burst the skin of the drawn, aristocratic face. Arl Howe was always quick to tell Loghain what he wanted to hear. Loghain rose, and Howe and Cauthrien followed them out the door and through the gates, the guards falling in beside them.

* * *

Arl Eamon nodded to his honour guard. His standard bearer raised the red-and-green pennant of Castle Redcliffe, then affixed a flag of truce below it. Their ten guards took up positions around them. As they neared Denerim palace, they heard the great winches squeal against the strain of raising the gates. Rilian could see men on the walls, crossbows trained on them. Would the man who had ordered the execution of the Wardens respect the white flag? It seemed to make no sense – but Rilian reminded herself this was a Denerim she didn't know – the side half-dreamed of behind the high stone walls of the Alienage – and that she just had to trust Arl Eamon would not have wasted their lives, and his own.

Teyrn Loghain and two people she did not recognize came out to meet them.

* * *

Cauthrien's dark eyes narrowed as she sized up the motley crew. Arl Eamon, all stern pomposity, looking remarkably well-fed for someone just recovered from illness, his beard bristling in all directions in his prematurely aged face. The would-be King, who resembled Cailan - but whereas Cailan had had a sort of golden glow of privilege and idealism, this young man looked rather like the farmhand she had been promised to, before the Teyrn had given her the chance to make herself more than she ever dreamed she could be. And the Warden, her slenderness all grace as she dismounted. Even in armour, she managed to convey a lithe lightness, a supple strength. She looked like the stories they told in Orlais: of girls dressing as boys to win tournaments... Aveline, or some such silly name. It set Cauthrien's teeth on edge. Here was Arl Eamon's poster girl...and to be fair, if even half the tales were true she was a talented young person - but a six-month blaze of glory and charm did not add up to twenty years of soldiering: of knowledge of supply, fortification, how to withstand a siege...how to defend a nation. And this was who Arl Eamon was proposing to save Ferelden! Well, _he_ would have to do it in that case - and so far his only noteworthy achievement had been to stand up to the Bannorn in marrying Isolde.

"...I am pleased to see you have recovered from your illness..." Loghain was saying.

"Why not call your poison by its true name," Eamon retorted, "The Blood Mage Jowan confessed everything."

"Arl Eamon, I assure you, if I had wanted you dead I would not have put my trust in some fool mage. And you, Grey Wardens - my condolences on the treachery of your Order at Ostagar."

At that, the boy Alistair started forward; the elf touched his arm almost imperceptibly, and he stopped. She was aware of Loghain taking this in...filing the knowledge away as a possible weak point - or leverage.

"Ser," said the elf, in a hard clear voice - she had stepped forward, and somehow both she and Loghain were drawn into looking at her. She had strange eyes, for an elf - eyes of a brown so light and translucent as to be almost amber; they glowed like twin stars in a face all spirit. Strange, that, because the Alienage the girl had come from was the arsehole of Denerim, and most of the elves within had the look of cornered rats. But Cauthrien had seen people before who built inner lives against sordid realities... Visionaries and dreamers, she thought wearily, always a dangerous thing. "You know that Alistair and I cannot be traitors. It was King Cailan who chose us to light the beacon, not the Wardens - and between that order and the attack we had no time to plan anything. We were late lighting the beacon because the Tower of Ishal had already fallen to darkspawn - we had to fight for every inch of ground."

"And none of that explains how you _survived_ Ostagar. The darkspawn left no living thing up there." Loghain's face was hard as stone.

"No, they didn't - but Alistair and I had...help." And when Loghain prompted her to go on Cauthrien almost laughed out loud at the childish ludicrousness of the tale the girl concocted. She darted a glance at Arl Eamon, to see what he thought of his ambitions coming apart in the tale of a witch in dragon form who spirited the two lovers away from the Tower. Loghain smirked.

The elf actually took a step forward, towards the Teyrn. Unable to rely on size or physical presence, she ground her furious stare into his. There were few among the Bannorn who could hold his gaze like that; he had faced such eyes through helmet-slits, seen that look on the faces of men prepared to die before they would yield the gate or the pass. Her face was younger, softer, more expressive than the faces of the few women who had served with his Night Elves - stone-cold killers with faces sharp and worn as knives after years of Orlesian abuse - but it held the same fierce resolution.

"The witch's name is Flemeth," she said coldly, "She told us that the hearts of men hold more darkness than any tainted creature. She told me that she had met you - that she had warned King Maric about you: "Keep him close, and he will betray you - each time worse than the last."

Cauthrien was aware of Loghain's intake of breath like a breeze of shock...she saw his face slowly whiten, and wanted her hands around that Elven neck.

"Silence, churl," she hissed, "How dare you interrupt the negotiations of your betters with your fantasies and your ignorant childish spite! I know who you are: the scum Captain Arvall arrested; Vaughan Urien's murderer! Nothing but a common criminal."

The girl's face remained unmoved; only the eyes changed, becoming bright and flat as golden discs, the pupils contacted to pinpricks. Her voice was light and hard, like a finely-made dagger flexing: "I don't deny it: it's true. I did my duty to the Alienage - it's how it survives. Nothing's changed - except I fight to protect humans now as well as elves. If you argue that, then we can settle it - but preferably outside. Even as a common criminal I disliked common brawls."

Much as Cauthrien would have liked to hand the Elven chit her backside, she knew Loghain would never allow such a scene. If the opportunity came up later... In any case, she had accomplished what she meant to: given Loghain time to collect himself. To Cauthrien's surprise, he addressed the elf, and something in his voice had changed:

"At the battle of West Hill, I rode to save the King and left the army to its fate; I could not do that again. King Maric asked for my loyalty to his vision, not his bloodline. He asked me to put Ferelden first. I _am_ loyal to my King." He looked, for a moment, like a man lost in memories, in old instances of violence, in regret. But a moment later all that was banished. In the thirty years of battles, leadership, and hard choices, Loghain had made himself more a sword than a man - and a sword knew nothing about surrender. Something in the elf's face had changed too - a subtle tension drained out of the confrontation - her face, which expressed her thoughts as clearly as clouds foretold the weather, was thoughtful, considering. Loghain turned to Arl Eamon:

"Eamon - your own sister worked tirelessly to restore unity to Ferelden. Would you undo all her work just to put a puppet on the throne? You cared about this land once..."

"If you truly want to save this land, stand with us." That was the elf, again - Cauthrien wondered what the old Arl would think of _that_.

Loghain snorted. "I am to put my faith in untried foreign hands?"

"Well, not _untried_ - and not foreign either. I'm not talking about the Orlesian Wardens but about the mages of the Tower - the soldiers of Redcliffe - the dwarves of Orzammer and the Dalish Elves. I'm talking about Alistair - a Therrin; and me: as Ser Cauthrien points out, a citizen of the Denerim Alienage. My family is here; my father. You have no-one here with more reason to fight. Or win."

And, suddenly, like throwing a torch into an unlit cave, releasing a swarm of bats, Cauthrien remembered the tattooed mage who had been to see Loghain - the documents sighed - the money in the coffers...It's necessary, she told herself harshly: we need those extra troops; these so-called allies of the Wardens might never materialise. What was there to do but sacrifice the few to save the many...even if that weren't true, she knew where her loyalties lay. Honour and loyalty - for her they were the same thing.

Loghain called the elf's bluff: "If that is so, then you are an excellent recruiter - and will not mind putting your troops at my disposal."

"That is not for you to decide, Warden..."

"I thought the whole idea was to get justice for Duncan..."

The objections of Arl Eamon and Alistair were only too predictable. Cauthrien watched the Elven girl hesitate, her fists ball up in frustration - but she, too, was loyal to her King:

"I can't do that, Ser. Even if it were up to me...I think you may be trying, the best way you know how, to do what's best for Ferelden - but I can't trust the man who poisoned the Arl. What would you do to Alistair? Or to any you decide are a threat? What if we need those Orlesian troops? The Landsmeet will decide who rules Ferelden."

"Then there is nothing to discuss."

It was left to Arl Eamon to have the last word: "I can never forgive what you have done, Loghain. Perhaps the Maker can, but not I."

It couldn't have gone any other way, Cauthrien knew: once Arl Eamon had put the boy forward as a rival for the throne, he had to win or die. The elf was loyal to Alistair - _she_ was loyal to Loghain - neither could step down...and meanwhile the Blight continued to rage. What sorry fools we are, she thought wearily. If it weren't for love there'd be nothing good in us at all...


	2. Chapter 2: Sisters Under The Skin

Denerim marketplace seemed oddly untouched by the tensions in every quarter of the city. Rilian looked around, taking in silks as bright as peacock feathers - the scent of herbs and spices - the glitter of a fine armour stand. Forgetting Arl Eamon's instructions not to tarry on their way to his estate, she and Alistair browsed gleefully. She spoke to a woman selling Orlesian oils - she thought of Leliana immediately and wanted to buy her something that reminded her of home. She heard the woman's story - and was amazed at a land where human commoners were treated as badly as elves (worse - Vaughan Urien had been unusual in actually grabbing his women in broad daylight; at least most shems waited at the outskirts, and relied on desperate women who needed that extra coin to barter themselves.) The fact that her parents had managed to shield her from that amazed her still. Rilian had had a father who could make even gruel taste appetising - and a mother who had taught her to read, to sing, and to wield daggers with deadly grace. Adaia had never told her why she had left Orlais to settle in a place that seemed too small to hold her - now, having met Leliana and heard Liselle's story - she guessed. A bard played hard and fell harder - Ferelden and Cyrion had offered sanctuary. At least for a time. Rilian had never questioned how her mother could have afforded the books, clothes and wonderful toys of her childhood - not until the day, five years ago now, when the guards had arrested Adaia. They had cut off her right hand in the square - the standard punishment for theft. Rilian had cared for her - had tried to show her mother that she was more than a hand to feed her family or pluck a lute - but Adaia had died six months later. Memories of that day in the square bled into those of Vaughan Urien's death. Rilian still had nightmares about the vengeance she had taken..._which of the women did you enjoy the best; did they scream as loudly as you do now?..._but she wouldn't have undone it.

It wasn't long before the sight of a familiar haughty face – beautiful save for the mouth that was pinched to resemble a cat's bum – and angry screech: "careful of that box, churl – it's worth more than you'll make in a year!" drew her attention. A smile quirked Rilian's lips – half-amused, half-ashamed. Her mother's bardic training hadn't been wasted – she'd had the knowledge to make a good servant. When Cyrion – who was the head pastry chef for Lady Habren's father – had gotten her the position of lady's maid he had thought her made for life. But no – she'd had to open her big mouth; had lasted two months before being sacked. The memory of her father's disappointment made her frown unhappily. They had gone without firewood that winter.

The five years as a dockworker that had followed had solved that problem, and been unexpectedly satisfying. No screeching noblewomen to deal with. Even the men had left her alone, more or less, because the average day's work left them too tired to do anything but shuffle to the mess hall, stand in front of the massive woman they nicknamed Fatty Glug, and mutter: "Gimme whatever's goin'…" Swift as thought, the sensory memory of soft cloth and laughter stole through her mind…Shianni's voice: "It's a beautiful dress…oh. I, uh, guess they didn't have your measurements quite right"… her own sinking heart as she realised she was probably going to dwarf her groom. Being tall and muscled, it was easy for the other girls to tease her about being part-shem (not true – Rilian was not a bastard; Adaia and Cyrion had been devoted to each other.) It wasn't the same rejection as racism. The hurt was the same though. But the moment she'd laid eyes on Nelaros all doubts had disappeared. The young blacksmith was the first Elven man she had met who had made her feel delicate and light as a feather. He'd had a smile like sun on flowers…

"Hey – you're going to walk into that wall if you don't look up…"

Rilian turned to look at her companion. Light hazel eyes sparkled mischievously. Alistair had Nelaros' idealism and Cyrion's steadiness and an offbeat sense of humour entirely his own. As she studied him, she caught a glimpse of what made him so accident prone. He was too many things at once: the boy who had been "raised by dogs" – a templar – Duncan's protégé – and the man he was becoming. The differing parts of him seldom came into balance. She found it endearing. Yet today it saddened her. Who would he be after Arl Eamon made him King?

"Sorry," she said sheepishly, "I was…"

"You were thinking about home." Sometimes he was almost eerily perceptive. It was the thing Rilian had longed for and dreaded ever since they had begun the journey to Denerim. Only a few streets and a wrought iron gate separated her from the family she missed like a burning ache. Yet here she was, dawdling, shopping, anything to put the moment off…

Because she didn't know whether Captain Arvall had kept his word. Because the only thing that had made leaving home bearable was the image of Cyrion and Shianni and Soris safe. That image was a treasure at the back of her mind; and fragile as glass.

"We could go together," Alistair's eyes were dark and intent, "I'd like to meet your family." He had made an intuitive leap that carried him into the centre of her fear, and was offering his support. She didn't quite have the words for what that meant to her. Rilian's idealism did not extend to a belief in happy endings; she knew, even if Alistair wouldn't admit it to himself, that Arl Eamon's plans to make him King held no room for an Elven consort. It shamed her slightly that she could so easily accept it - not because she was noble, but because after losing Nelaros - after having done _that_ to his murderer - she could never be a happy wife. The past was always with her. It was his friendship she could not bear to lose. Whatever happened at the Landsmeet, she decided, she would never sacrifice that.

"Let's go, then," Rilian agreed, steeling herself as she had to do before battle. Together she and Alistair headed for the Alienage gates.

The towering gates reared upward; chill iron railings jutting up into a bruise-blue sky, their tips gilded rose by the afternoon sun. Rilian thought of darkspawn spears, of blood..._the sickly iron stink of it as Nelaros fell to the stone; Vaughan's screams when she_... Rilian shuddered. Why was she thinking of this _now_ - the Alienage was safe; had been beautiful in the evening light when Duncan led her away - she was going to see them all again in a few heartbeats...

"Sorry - no visitors allowed beyond this point." The voice belonged to a balding guard who idly picked his teeth with the point of a knife. A shudder of revulsion rippled through her - strange after months of seeing human soldiers as family - this one probably had a wife and kids, just as they did...

"But I'm _from_ the Alienage," she blurted.

"I wouldn't say that too loudly," he warned her, with a kind of rough sympathy, "Arl Howe's had the area closed off; there were riots - something about Arl Urien's son...he's had to - restore order..."

Rilian wondered vaguely why the guard was taking a step backwards; a glance in a mirror would have told her. He confronted pale, flat features; hard-shut white lips and fixed glittering stare, the eyes all golden around pupils contracted to pinpricks - a blazing rage, condensed by silence like the core of a furnace.

Alistair gripped her shoulder, tightly, tried to pull her away: "Rilian - hey, Rilian - it may not be as bad as it sounds; Arl Eamon can deal with Howe, at the Landsmeet - let's go talk to him."

In a colourless white-hot voice Rilian said, "You're right - fighting will do no good; I need to _think_." She allowed Alistair to lead her away. She needed to get to her family - _needed_ to; it was like an instinct - but he was right. Fighting on home ground had gotten Nelaros killed; this battle would be fought on enemy territory - in the chambers of the palace itself...her six months leading an army had taught her about choosing her battlefield. She didn't really take in the rest of Alistair's words - not until he suddenly stopped before an unfamiliar wooden door:

"It can't be - this looks like_...Goldanna's_ house? Could we just - go knock on the door?"

Because she had been following Alistair's lead, Rilian stopped when he did. His light brown eyes were filled with a painful mixture of guilt and excitement - delighted he had found his sister; worried it would hurt Rilian to be dragged into meeting someone else's family at such a time. It was strange, really, how easily she could read his thoughts on his face - and endearing. Rilian found she welcomed the distraction. She nodded, her taut muscles relaxing in slow increments, lips quirking upward into something like a smile.

The joy on Alistair's face was so brilliant her spirits began to lighten, as if touched by the sun. "Will she even know I exist?" he asked, as if to himself, "My sister. That sounds very strange: "sister"...**_sisterrr_**..." He looked both comical and brave, accessible to joy and pain; troubled, sweet and precious.

"Come on - let's go, before you lose your nerve." And Rilian gave him a little push forward.

The woman who met them looked more - _understandable_ - then any other human woman Rilian had met so far, except for Liselle. She wasn't a wise and powerful Circle mage - a fierce and feral golden-eyed sorceress - a beautiful and amazingly talented bard - or a spoiled noblewoman whose shrill voice could probably strip paint. Even her greeting: "You have linens to wash? I charge three bits on the bundle, you won't find better. And don't trust what that Natalia tells you, either. She's foreign and she'll rob you blind!" was so like something Shianni would have said that she almost smiled. Shianni wasn't as physically strong as Rilian, but she worked longer hours, and had often teased her about being soft. She'd had the same kind of professional rivalry with the competition, though they always closed ranks in the face of shem abuse.

Alistair was shifting awkwardly, as if not quite sure what to say. "I know this is kind of strange, but are you Goldanna? If so, I…I'm your brother."

The woman paled; her eyes - she had Alistair's eyes - narrowed. "What kind of tomfoolery are you up to?"

Rilian was suddenly acutely aware of how she and Alistair must look: both of them armed and armoured - the price of their weapons alone would have fed this woman's family for a month. A vivid mental image of how strange and threatening Duncan had first seemed to her - dropped into the heart of the Alienage like some exotic and dangerous beast - popped into her head. How could she have forgotten? Would she and Alistair seem wealthy and dangerous to her own kin? Trapped inside her were the different selves she had been: the girl to whom fifteen silver bits had seemed a horde beyond her dreams, and the soldier - the "Hero of Redcliffe" who was supposed to crown a King - mysteriously conjoined. She blinked away the sudden strange sensation of seeing the world in double vision and returned to hear Goldanna saying:

"They told me you was dead! Them's at the castle – I said the babe was the King's and they throws a coin at me to stop my mouth and just sends me on my way all on my own..."

"I...I didn't know that," Alistair stammered, and the look in his dark, lost eyes squeezed Rilian's heart. Why did I let him walk into this mess unready? We could have sent a message; dressed like civilians - I could have prepared him... Instead he had walked in with his heart in his hands, and from the look he gave her it was as though it had just dropped to the floor at her feet.

"Goldanna - Alistair came here to find his family," she tried softly.

"And who are you - some tart after him for his money, I expect..."

Rilian almost laughed at that, thinking of the first time she had met him: the big clunky human wearing dented splintmail and smelling of cheese. She managed to keep a straight face, and squeezed Alistair's hand when he would have defended her. They were going to hear a lot worse at the Landsmeet. From what she'd heard, Elven mistresses had been a weakness of Alistair's father. Unbidden, all the words she'd ever heard from guardsmen slithered from dark corners and crawled back into her brain: crude - _dehumanising,_ she would have thought, if that were not a contradiction in terms. Those words had nothing to do with her and Alistair, and everything - I will never let them talk that way about us; I will not be that woman... She loved him, but there were times when love wasn't enough.

"Well, he's found it - for all the good it does me. I don't know you, boy. Your heritage means nothing to me. Your relation means nothing to me. I've got five mouths to feed and unless you can help me with that, I've got no use for you."

Alistair drew himself up with a dignity Rilian was proud of. "Then let me promise you this, Goldanna: I'll do whatever I can, speak to whomever I have to, to ensure you and your children are taken care of." Then he was stepping back - taking her hand - pulling her toward him as he headed for the door. "I want to go. Let's just - go..."

Outside, he stopped, his big hands shaking slightly - the boy's face upon the features of the man. Rilian had thought she was going to comfort him - tell him he didn't need some long-lost half-sister - tell him he already had all the family he needed right here. But Alistair's next words stopped her: "_This_ is the family I've been wondering about all these years? That..._shrew_...is my sister?" Outrage was beginning to creep into his voice: "I can't believe it! I...I guess I was just expecting her to accept me without question. Isn't that what family are supposed to do?"

A lifetime's anger, slow-burning behind her taut expression, took Rilian by surprise. "Everyone is out for themselves. You should learn that. Did you think her first thought would be of you when it was obvious she hadn't eaten properly for days? When twelve hour's work a day isn't enough to feed her children" _...The hunger of your children hurts worse than your own..._ That was Cyrion's voice, infinitely weary; he had not known Rilian was listening. "I remember looking after cousin Iona's little girl, thin and sick, and watching armed guardsmen stride past, smelling of meat and new-baked bread. Arl Urien said we Elves were lazy cowards - said it with his plump belly full of food; his guards in a square around him. He said we should understand his _greater _problems. Greater than hunger? Than cold, than sickness? Can there be worse than choosing which child shall have a crust of bread?" Her voice was tight with unshed tears and old anger still caged; the gate guard's words were raw wounds.

Alistair's face crumpled. "I meant what I said to her," he said softly, "I'll not let her children go hungry. And - if I become King - I'll tear down the Alienage walls." The look in his eyes - that eager, hopeful expression of youth rising to challenge - melted Rilian's heart. It was so like something Alistair _would_ say - and so like what his other half-sibling had promised at Ostagar - that it brought a lump to her throat. Even in her worst moments in the Alienage, she had always belonged - even when she had felt too-tall, or too-outspoken, or too-curious about the outside world, she had always known what she was rebelling _from_. She had forged her own identity from the bonds of family. She tried to imagine what it must feel like to have lived for twenty years and never once have known it: _I guess I was just hoping you would like me for who I am... _Arl Eamon saw a challenge to Loghain: a piece to be moved across a board - Duncan had seen a recruit... _and what do I see?_ _A ruler to bring justice - equality between Elves and humans – gold and jewels for all - meat and ale and honey... _A child's dream, after a beating. Nothing to do with Alistair's wishes. It was a heartbreaking realisation.

"You are a good man," she told him softly, "You will make a good King. But you must learn to stand up for yourself. Otherwise you will always be Arl Eamon's puppet - or _mine_."

Alistair was looking at her a little blankly, not really understanding. But she had the feeling this conversation would prove important in time; more than she'd realised.


	3. Chapter 3: How The Other Half Lives

Arl Eamon's estate seemed to occupy an inordinately large space of Denerim city - Rilian thought that they could probably get two dozen Alienage houses into the space of the kitchens alone. Before working for Lady Habren, she had never really thought about what would go into a rich man's home - had envisaged even a palace as a sort of glorified Elven cottage, only with _more_ of what her family had had. As she stepped onto marble tiles softened by velvet rugs, surrounded by carvings and tapestries and mahogany chairs, she was reminded of the limitations of imagination. She had not really had time to take in Redcliffe castle: the wreckage strewn everywhere - legacy of the twisted creatures summoned by the Fade Demon - had spoiled her first impressions. Here she took in the twin statues of Andraste - the large wall-hangings of stylised dogs - the antique vases - and tried to calculate how many of her people they would have fed for how long. This was not just an exercise in bitterness - Rilian often went over such problems with Sten and Ser Perth, both experienced soldiers, aware that she needed that knowledge to effectively manage the growing horde of refugees and soldiers they were leading. Arl Eamon himself seemed to think no further than putting Alistair on the throne - or maybe he just didn't think her worth taking into his confidence - but the problem was very real. And even Sten, a commander of the Beresaad, had never had to plan a war on such a scale, or deal with civilians. The fear that if they actually ousted Loghain from the regency they would have no clue how to step into his shoes was a very real one. She didn't have a lot of time to think about it, but it seeped into the rest of her thoughts like dye into water, colouring them with nameless dread.

Rilian passed two more statues of Andraste, smiling benignly over them, and headed up wide steps into a large hall. Her eyes lit up when she passed a large library - since her days in Mother Boann's school she had devoured books and maps every chance she got (she had been almost a permanent visitor in Alarith's store). She found Arl Eamon there, pouring over a volume of genealogy, and explained as best she could what Arl Howe had done in the Alienage. Pale blue eyes looked up from the page:

"Yes - if Loghain's allies are causing trouble that could be an advantage," he murmured thoughtfully.

Alistair, aware of some intent Rilian had not been aware of herself, grabbed her arm before she could step forward. Rilian shuddered at how close she had actually come to punching her own ally in his broad, complacent face. Unaware of the little drama that had just played out, Eamon continued:

"But we will need more than that to throw against him in the Landsmeet. The problem is that Loghain has been here for months; we will need to speak to whom we can, get a feel for the lay of the land, so to speak. I would suggest speaking to..."

Rilian took in the list of nobles, her mind on other things. She was thinking about that meeting with Loghain - the second time she had met him, actually - and about what Arl Eamon really wanted here. She felt she had almost understood the Teyrn, across a gulf no-one else had wanted to bridge.

"Was it necessary to put Alistair forward as a rival for the throne?" she asked Eamon quietly, "If we had simply gone to Denerim and opened talks for an alliance..." She ignored Alistair's angry start and continued to watch the Arl.

"And would it have made a difference?" Arl Eamon snapped, "The Teyrn was sending men to kill Grey Wardens long before I ever..."

Yes, that was true: at that doomed War Council - had it really only been six months ago? - General Loghain had seemed to hold some private but powerful ill feeling toward the Wardens. Was it only because they were Orlesian, or had something else happened? Not for the first time, she wished she had had the chance to get to know Duncan better - she had the creeping uneasy sense that there was far more to being a Grey Warden than he had had time to teach them. She remembered Teyrn Loghain telling her it had been King Maric who had first brought the order back to Ferelden, after two-hundred years of exile. Strangely, the Teyrn had been the first human she had met who had said something kind to her without an agenda. _You're pretty for a Grey Warden... _It had been patronizing, but not lascivious. Unlike the rumours about King Maric - unlike the gleam in King Cailan's eye or the love in Alistair's - the Teyrn's tastes did not run to Elves. It was more like something he might have said to a much younger human woman, the daughter of a friend - a sort of absent-minded compliment, his mind on other things. And then: _Don't let anyone tell you you don't belong - the first Warden Maric brought to Ferelden was a woman; best warrior I've ever seen... _It had not been lost on her that he had said _woman_ rather than _Elf, _making no distinction_._ Unlike nearly every other soldier at Ostagar, he had not seemed to find the notion of Elves being warriors a strange one. She found herself thinking of the Teyrn's own daughter - how strange that the Queen had had no part in that first meeting; where was she? It was, after all, Queen Anora whom Arl Eamon was seeking to replace - was she really that passive, or was something else going on? Not for the first time, Rilian had the sense of being way out of her depth in a sea she had no place in; human politics were a mystery to her. And that was why she had no choice but to swim with the tide.

"No, we have no choice but to oppose Loghain with the one person who has a stronger claim to the throne," the Arl went on, as if in echo of her thoughts. "_That_ is the only way I have been able to call for a Landsmeet in the middle of a Blight - and a Landsmeet is what we need to unite the land. I have taken the liberty of inviting those Banns who may be receptive to my - to our ideas; we will dine with them tonight. Nigella will help you prepare."

Rilian's reunion with Nigella - a relation on her father's side who had worked as a maid for Arl Eamon for as long as she could remember - proved to be the highlight of her evening.

"Now, don't you worry about your father and cousins - that monster Howe came down brutally on the rioters, but your family weren't among them.'Course, it's been a while since I've seen them - they closed off the Alienage last week - but I know Cyrion. Adaia used to say he was too quiet around the shems - but it's that commonsense that'll see them though this."

Rilian shuddered in unbearable relief. The anxiety was still a hard knot in her stomach, but she had feared the worst - that Arl Howe had chosen specific vengeance upon Soris and Shianni for Vaughan's murder. What _had _happened sounded bad enough - but Alienage Elves had different hierarchies of bad to other, more fortunate citizens.

After Rilian had bathed and washed her hair, Nigella helped her brush it out and choose a dress - not a maid helping a Lady but an aunt helping a beloved niece.

"Ah - you've more your mother's colouring than your father's. But you don't have her eyes..."

"Shianni has the same hair and eyes as me - we get it from father's mother."

The talk of which child resembled which parent was as familiar and comforting as her mother's old boots - in a minute the talk would turn to who was courting who in the Alienage - which family paid which dowry - who could be trusted, and who lied in all encounters... Rilian relaxed into it, happier than she had been in a long time. When Nigella showed her a green silk dress - and explained with a grin that it belonged to Arlessa Isolde, and who was going to know - Rilian almost squealed in delight. She tried it on, feeling like the princesses in Leliana's stories. She began to hum the tune to "Alindra And Her Soldier" while Nigella fetched a mirror to show how well the green went with her red hair.

"Ah - that's my girl," Nigella was beaming, "I have never seen an Elven woman so finely dressed!"

That stopped Rilian like a sudden cold shower. "I have," she said, an odd note in her voice, "I've seen dresses like these on the women who used to take "favours" from shems - and every one of those nobles will have seen it too." She thought of her first meeting with Ser Perth: _I'm not sure how to address an elf in your position, _and her own realisation that, when there was no-one people could compare you to, you could make your own rules. "If I am to be taken seriously, I must be _different_. And everyone will know what I stand for." She searched among her belongings until she found the answer - the beautiful tunic Wynne had made for her at camp, in between darning Alistair's socks: a soft grey with a stylised griffin across the front. She teamed it with black form-fitting trousers, a wide belt, and boots whose colour matched the tunic. She would not have bartered those boots for food had she been starving - they were Adaia's; the only thing she had of her mother's.

She met Alistair and Arl Eamon in the hallway. Alistair gave an admiring wolf-whistle, thinking no further than how the outfit fitted her athletic figure; interestingly, Arl Eamon's face was full of suppressed bile - he had _wanted _her to be a pretty figurehead, she realised then, and was extremely happy to disappoint him.

The dinner itself surprised her as much as the house. The Elven dockworkers ate differently to the rest of the Alienage - the stuff Fatty Glug served was disgusting but nutritious; for the work they did they had to be strong. Rilian had a workman's appetite, which had only increased since becoming a Warden; the rest of the camp were alternately amazed and horrified by the amount she and Alistair could put away. She had assumed nobles ate more of the same food they did - what else was there? - and peered dubiously at the thin greenish-gold liquid in a glossy blue bowl. She waited until the others had dipped their - _silver_ - spoons into it before trying it; it tasted better than her wildest dreams. This was followed by a rack of lamb, accompanied by a stuffing flavoured with herbs. She had to make a conscious effort not to bolt it, aware of the Banns watching her covertly. She wondered if they knew she was calculating how many of her people just one such meal would feed. They might - and they might be worrying about it, too.

Alistair looked every bit as uncomfortable as she felt. She shot Arl Eamon an incredulous look: _you're putting him forward to be King and you never bothered teaching him this stuff? My father gave me everything he could; you gave Alistair roof and board till he was ten and then sent him off to become a lyrium-addicted templar... _Never mind, she told her fellow Warden silently - we've seen things these nobles wouldn't believe. The Halls of Orzammar - the wonders of the Dalish, with their ancient link to land and deeper magic than the Circle would ever know - the Ashes of Andraste... When the Banns asked about the allies the Wardens were providing she told them these tales, drawing Alistair out so that he spoke of their adventures like the hero that he was. Rilian's image of him carried over - to their audience and to Alistair himself: she had always had that power. Had Leliana been there she would have seen that not all her bardic training had been wasted. In turn she tried to learn everything she could of the situation in Denerim.

She answered the Banns' tales with what wit she could muster, though their grievances seemed petty. Why would someone whose lands were in danger of being swallowed by darkspawn want a judgement on Teyrn Loghain for confiscating said lands to feed his army? Why pick this moment to complain that he had conscripted an elder son without the father's permission? She realised for the first time that to some of these nobles the Teyrn was still an upstart farmer-turned-soldier; a war hero but no true noble. She might have found this funny (after all, they were saying this to an Elven gutter rat) but she had no time to enjoy the irony.

What she was left with was a certain reluctant sympathy for Loghain. She plotted his actions at Ostagar and wondered if she herself would have done any differently. Only a Grey Warden who lived up to the ideal of _anything to stop the Blight _could judge him for refusing help from the Orlesian chevaliers - she certainly could not. She had destroyed the Anvil of the Void - which might have won them the war - because the price had seemed too high; she couldn't then blame Loghain for having a line he could not cross. It had been King Cailan who had refused to wait for Arl Eamon's troops - and who had insisted on fighting in the front lines. _If only the Tower hadn't fallen - if only we could have lit the beacon in time... _but if only never won a battle. By the time he had received the signal it was too late - _I would have retreated too, I couldn't have sacrificed my men - the last defence against the Blight - not even to save a King..._ And afterwards, what had Loghain done? Sent emissaries to Orzammar for allies - tried to recruit the mages of the Circle... What he had promised Uldred - autonomy from the Chantry - was only what many other mages had wanted; he would have succeeded in recruiting the best weapon in Thedas against the Blight...if Wynne had not argued against aiding him - for no better reason than the retreat at Ostagar! _When she's not wise as the Maker she's as silly as some old hen-wife..._ Rilian squashed the thought at once, guiltily. Wynne was like her favourite grandmother; Rilian was...not a daughter, exactly - not the way Wynne saw her son in Alistair - but an echo of another elf; some long-ago sadness. Of course, neither Loghain nor Wynne could have anticipated what had come of it... Rilian and Alistair had cleaned up the mess; salvaged what they could - but the mages they had now were a fraction of the original number. Still, no matter her sympathy for Loghain's predicament, she could never trust him. He had used Blood Magic to poison a man who disagreed with him - had sent assassins to kill the remaining Grey Wardens. The only way to work with him would be to neutralise his power, somehow - and how were they going to do that without killing him? _He strikes me as a man who has never surrendered in his life..._

Listening to Arl Eamon and the nobles talk, a new worry began to creep into her mind. With no knowledge of economics beyond ministering to a force of a few hundred, Rilian had no choice but to take their word for the fact that the city's coffers were almost empty - that after the civil war the Teyrn had neither the gold nor the manpower to defeat the Blight (_not unless some of these nobles agree to eat a little less well – but, of course, he can't push _that_ through without making more enemies than he already has - possibly losing control of the city entirely...) _Arl Eamon seemed to think this was _good_ news:

"If there is no way that Ferelden can survive without my support and that of the Grey Warden allies, then the Teyrn _must_ listen to reason – a Grey Warden who is also the last of the Theirin bloodline offers the best hope of uniting the land against the Blight."

"The man who secured Ferelden's independence will never agree to that," the elderly, distinguished-looking Bann Sighard interjected, "And truth be told there are those of us who are not comfortable with the idea of a Ferelden King who takes his orders from Weisshaupt."

"The Grey Wardens are our only hope against the Blight! If Teyrn Loghain cannot see that then he must be mad or blind."

Rilian listened in silence, her mind whirling. The man she had met at the gates was neither – he was a ruthless, hard-minded, fanatical patriot, and Arl Eamon trying to put a Grey Warden on the throne would only have confirmed his worst suspicions. Such a man would never compromise, never surrender – but nor would he allow his country to be swallowed by the Blight. What then? The answer was blindingly simple to her – she was surprised none of the others seemed to see it. He would find other allies somewhere – anywhere – promise things he could never admit to publicly. What could he have promised – what resources did Ferelden have other than gold or land…

Rilian's thoughts skittered, shying away from something. Inexplicably, she thought of Alarith, and his stories of flight from a land far away; she couldn't remember the name. She remembered the sight of the brand that started at his palm and disappeared into his sleeve…_Don't ever ask_, her father had said, _and never complain, lass, until you've borne the like…_

It was enough to ruin even a Grey Warden's appetite. Stomach churning, head spinning from the glass of red wine – how could a single glass of something be so strong? - she rose with the others and bade the guests goodnight. A handful stayed behind, talking with Arl Eamon about what measures he proposed to ensure Ferelden's nobility were treated fairly – by which she supposed they meant allowed to keep their lands and gold while others funded the war effort. One of these accosted her just as she was looking around for Alistair.

"It was a pleasure to meet you," he said, his voice as mellow as the aged wine, "So different from what I'd expected – truly, a Queen among Elves…" Rilian controlled her reaction with an effort – did the man think an Elven woman had never heard lying flattery before? "I'm sure you will want to know," the voice had a slight edge to it now, "that some of my fellows have been, ah, less than honest with you. They have their own standards, you see – not, perhaps, what you would understand, being so noble yourself."

Rilian was tempted to say: "Get on with it, man – is it lands and gold you want or someone's life?" She murmured something noncommittal and tried to pull away – where was Alistair… One large hand closed around her forearm – she felt its sweat warm through her sleeve. She glanced ahead, to where Alistair was standing, looking flushed and out of his depth among a crowd of nobles, sending a silent plea…if he didn't rescue her soon she would end up kneeing this fool in the crotch – and that was hardly the way to win support at the Landsmeet.

"There's fair and there's fair," the man was murmuring, "I'm sure that you, ah – Lady Tabris," that came out of him as harshly as a cough – she wagered he was used to far different ways of addressing Elven women…the memory of Vaughan was like acid at the back of her throat, "will understand. I want you to know I'm your friend; you can trust me. And, as a token, I have a small gift." The small gift came heavily into Rilian's hand - a velvet pouch; she knew without looking what it would contain. More now than Vaughan's forty silvers - she had, after all, gone up in the world... Revulsion shook her - she wanted to refuse him in the same way she had refused Vaughan. She settled for opening her palm and letting the bag hit the floor with a loud clang, coins spilling out. "You dropped something, ser."

The man's look was pure poison as he bent to pick them up. Arl Eamon and Alistair turned at the sound - Alistair's eyes concerned; Eamon's disapproving.

"That was foolish," the Arl murmured when they were alone, "We cannot afford to antagonize anyone. He might have helped us."

"I might have been his toy, or dead," Rilian said softy. "Excuse me, ser - it's been a long day." She headed for her chambers, wanting to take a bath and wash it all off.


	4. Chapter 4:The Hand That Signed The Paper

Next day dawned bright and cold. Rilian woke from dreams of flight - dreams that had been of freedom, but had quickly morphed into something darker: something that involved vast, twisted wings, flashing teeth and claws - to find herself surrounded by silken sheets that caressed her skin. She yawned, stretched luxuriously, and grinned. Yesterday's dinner had left a bad taste in her mouth - but she couldn't help but enjoy this.

She rose and padded about the circular chamber, still wearing the thin linen shift that had lasted all the way from her days at home. She went to the narrow slitted window and stared out of the second-floor turret. Scattered stars still burned, disappearing as she watched. Rilian had not intended to wake so early - five years as a dockworker and six months in the field had conditioned her to. The courtyard below was an empty, uncoloured paleness. Faded flags fluttered in the faint breeze. To the right were the servants' quarters, and to the left the kitchens. A puff of smoke came from a stone chimney - then another, curling upward into the pre-dawn sky. As if sparked by the kitchen fires, a luminous band of rose appeared at the horizon, touching the tallest towers first, then creeping downward inch by inch to light the wooden houses that existed in the shadows of the stone. These writhed and shifted against the flow of light like the ebbing of water. Rilian remembered her mother's tales of the Alienage in Val Royeaux, where the walls were so high the sun didn't touch the Vhenadahl until midday. In the end all was light: the russet stone of the well, the red-and-emerald flags - and the stained glass windows of the Chantry in the distance. That soaring space woke something in her heart and made her dream; she could have spent hours just standing here, watching the world. A flicker of movement below drew her eye - at the gate that separated estate from town, a burly guard paced back and forth, his chainmail dark against the dawn-lit stone. Rilian could almost feel the chilled bones and aching feet, the counting the minutes till the morning crew appeared.

He didn't have long to wait. But the time the morning guard relieved him the courtyard had woken to life. Servants drew water from the well - a slight figure appeared, garbed from head to foot in a soft blue robe, walking purposefully toward the gate. A messenger, Rilian guessed, watching with interest as the guard hesitated a moment and then nodded. Rilian turned away, pulled on tunic, trousers and Adaia's boots, and headed downstairs. She meant to draw water for a morning bath - but on the way the delicious smell of new-baked bread and cheese wafted from the kitchens. Moving as if lead by the nose, she pushed open the door to find Alistair hunched over a large platter, indulging the famous Grey Warden appetite. What made the picture even funnier was that he was still wearing his clothes of last night - she remembered him staying up to drink with the Arl and guessed he'd just fallen into bed.

"Nice outfit," she greeted him, suppressed laughter bubbling out in a little snort. Alistair jumped up - cracked his knee on the wooden bench - and put a hand to his chest as if mortally struck.

"That's low, Ril! I knew it was bad as soon as the Arl went into raptures over it - and you have confirmed my worst fears..." He tugged disconsolately at the embroidered velvet tunic that fitted like a sausage skin over his broad chest - the tight stockings and puffed knee-high trousers, stitched with gold thread.

Rilian struck a dramatic pose: one hand behind her back, the other raised as though holding a scroll, and intoned: "..._and Maric the Saviour eschewed the trappings of luxury, preferring the garb of the simple soldier, that he might move better amongst the common folk_..." She'd reread Mother Boann's copy of "The Rebel Prince" so many times she knew it word-for-word. "I guess the Arl feels you should make up for such lack of elegance - my Prince...ah!"

Alistair had leapt up and was chasing her. Rilian squealed and dodged away. The two danced around each other until Alistair caught her and swept her into his arms, lifting her up and bending forward.

Unfortunately, he misjudged the distance. Their foreheads cracked together with a sound like breaking bone.

"Oh, Rilian, I'm sorry!" he stammered, "Are you alright? I'm so sorry!" One hand clasped his aching head - he reached out to her with the other.

Just for an instant, white sparks swirled around her like Morrigan's lightning storm. These gradually mellowed into orange-and-gold spatters. But she hadn't been hit as hard as all that - yesterday's wine accentuated the blow. She patted Alistair's hand - then rose and did her best to kick one of his shins: "One apology a day. That's all you get. I'm not some Bann you can trifle with!"

For a moment, he gaped at her as if she had gone mad. Then he let out a shout of laughter. Helpless to stop herself, she started laughing too. Cupping her cheek with his palm, he kissed her bruised forehead tenderly. Stifling the throbbing in her skull, she titled her head back to meet him half-way. In response he became brighter and brighter, as if he were burning. His arms closed around her and his lips came down on hers.

A tapping at the door distracted them. Rilian jumped and turned to see Nigella standing in the door-way. Rilian blushed; instinctively putting one hand up to cover her face. Being caught by Nigella was like being caught by her father, or the Hahren. _Elven woman. Human man. _It wasn't only the human side who passed judgement. She recalled last night's conversation about the Alienage girls who wore fine dresses and took "favours" from shems - and he's going to be King... _please don't think it's like that; I wouldn't... _She tried to stop herself, ashamed for caring about the opinions of others when Alistair did not, but she couldn't help it. Nigella did look shocked - but only for a moment. She sized Alistair up with sharp, expert eyes - her face relaxed imperceptibly.

"I'm sorry," she said, a small smile playing about her lips, "But you two had better get ready - the Arl's had a messenger and wants to see you in his study in an hour." She winked at Rilian before she left - the same indulgent look she would have given her had Alistair been an Elven lad; Rilian was more grateful than she could say.

"I've had the lads fetch warm water for your bath," she added. Rilian protested half-heartedly - it wasn't right to let Nigella coddle her like this - but the woman only smiled. Rilian had to admit - with a certain amount of guilt - that she could get used to this life. The thought scared her. After polishing off a helping of bread and cheese that would have done Alistair proud, she headed upstairs. She padded across the carpeted corridor on bare feet, Adaia's boots in her hand. She pushed open the door of the bathing room, and found herself in a square comfortable room with smooth slate tiles across the floor and wooden beams. The room was dominated by the largest, most comfortable washtub she had ever seen. A strange smell wafted from it – she saw to her astonishment that the water was covered all over by a glistening froth of scented foam! Rilian and Shianni had always kept clean - it would have been sheer laziness not to walk to the Alienage outskirts, draw water from the well, and wash down at home. Bathing was out of the question - the small stream that ran past the Alienage was fouled by the sewage duct leading from Arl Urien's estate - but she would sometimes take a dip in the sea after work. The docks were filthy and littered with refuse - the water so cold it was like knives of fire flaying her bare flesh - but she had liked to stare out at the vast, unknowable blackness and dream about where it might take her.

Rilian dived in, unable to help the grin that all but wrapped itself around her face. The foamy water enveloped her, soft and warm as the bed she had just slept in. She stretched herself all out and ducked her head underneath, holding her breath. It was like being buried in warm snow. She wiggled her toes, making little ripples swirl about her. When her lungs began to burn, she came up for air. The foam went up her nose; the scent of jasmine tickled the back of her throat. She sat up, water dripping down her face, her hair covered by a helmet of foam. The pale, scarred forearms that rested on her soapy knees made her think, idly, of furrows of snow. The foam around was sculpted into long, thin points like spears. The thought popped into her head that they looked rather like the stalagmites that had encased the wyrmling lair. She set about sculpting the foam to fit the little bright picture in her mind.

At last, she rose with a great splash, towelled herself down, and thought about what to wear. So far as she knew, the Arl intended them to spend the day as they had spent last night - networking and planning on how to upset Loghain in the Landsmeet. It would be ridiculous to wear her armour for that - yet if they were to go about town at any point it would be silly to wear her griffin tunic; the bounty on Grey Wardens was common knowledge. At last, in an almost aggressive nod to normalcy, she chose a plain, comfortable tunic and trousers. Really, the clothes the Arl insisted Alistair wear were fine enough for both of them.

Alistair met her at the door to Eamon's study; she winked at him and he squeezed her hand. Inside were maps, books and scrolls, piled atop an ornate writing desk. It reminded her of the study in Redcliffe castle where she had found Alistair's amulet, glued painstakingly together by the Arl. At the thought, she softened toward the man just a little.

Arl Eamon looked up from the desk, pleased to see Alistair looked more like Maric's son than ever. Every bit a Prince - really, the resemblance was uncanny. He frowned just a little at the sight of his companion - with a wardrobe full of fine dresses to choose from, that outfit was pure affectation. No matter - there were more important concerns than the young Warden's reverse snobbery. He gestured toward his visitor, and Rilian was startled to recognize the cowled figure in soft blue velvet she had seen out of her window.

"I am a messenger from Queen Anora." The voice, softened by the tunnelled hollow of the hood, was timid, heavily accented - and female. "My name is Erlina. I am Queen Anora's handmaiden" She drew back the hood of the robe - and Rilian noted with a ripple of irritation that Alistair drew an admiring breath. The Elven woman was startlingly beautiful. Dark eyes looked at them in hope and fear, while a tentative smile pulled at full red lips. Ivory skin contrasted dramatically with hair the colour of obsidian. She was tiny - and Rilian was reminded of the girls back home who had teased her about her height and build. She shook her head at her own ridiculousness and said quietly,

"I'm surprised Teyrn Loghain's daughter has an Orlesian maid?"

"His majesty King Cailan hired me," the woman said softly.

"The young King did not share Teyrn Loghain's outmoded prejudices," Arl Eamon said - and there was an undertone in that unctuously smooth voice that Rilian couldn't quite put her finger on, "You must tell the Wardens why you're here - they can be trusted.

"Her majesty the Queen is being kept prisoner in the Arl of Denerim's estate. She went there a week ago because her father would not listen - but Arl Howe will not let her leave! He...I...ah, I cannot tell you!" She turned away from them - a gesture Rilian read as consciously dramatic. When she turned back, tears glistened in her dark eyes. Was she really upset, or was it an act? Rilian and all the Elven women she knew cried noisily, red-faced, shoulders heaving - not one silver tear after another sliding down ivory cheeks.

"Spit it out, then, lass; we don't bite." It was the tone Rilian and her family used on each other - to comfort and calm down. On Erlina it acted like a hot needle; she jumped and glared.

"I overheard Arl Howe saying she would be more use dead than alive! If she could be killed - and the blame put on Arl Eamon..."

Rilian blinked - gazed at the Arl and at Alistair, then back at the woman. She felt she was missing something - some important piece of the puzzle. She strained to reason it out - this was as vital as understanding terrain in war - tried to make the pieces she did have fit together. "Arl Howe couldn't possibly do that without Teyrn Loghain knowing about it," she said softly, "Are you saying Loghain wants his own daughter dead?"

"Why not? King Cailan was like a son to him and yet he left him to die! Does he love Anora more?"

"I can't answer that," Rilian said softly, "I don't know the man. I could buy him choosing to sacrifice his daughter for what he sees as his duty to his country. What I don't buy is him thinking he could get away with it. Exactly _how_ would he frame Arl Eamon - don't you think it would raise questions? _Now_ - with near-open rebellion, and people accusing him of regicide? What would he stand to gain? His only claim to the throne is through Anora."

Alistair was looking at her wide-eyed; interestingly, both Arl Eamon and Erlina were looking chagrined. Rilian met the Arl's watery blue eyes, groping for some sanity in all this. "What do you think, ser? Do you think Arl Howe could get away with this?"

"I'm afraid I believe so."

"I see. And you're not going to tell me why?"

"You will just have to trust me. Erlina has told me she can smuggle you into the Arl's estate, disguised as a guard. Once you reach the grounds..."

Rilian stared incredulously at the prematurely-aged Arl. Memories of that estate crowded her mind like persistent ghosts; she forced them away. "An Elven guard! Are you saying you believe I would get away with keeping my helm on the entire time - not to mention escorting the Queen out with no permission; no papers!"

"I'm not saying you could avoid combat entirely," Eamon said soothingly, "But I know the Warden who defeated the High Dragon would be up to the challenge. You have done so before..."

Even as he saw the Elven face whiten, Eamon realised his mistake. Rilian was actually trembling, her fists clenched - it took Alistair to hold her back.

"Rilian - hey, I'm sure the Arl didn't mean..."

"Of course you would know I murdered Vaughan Urien," Rilian said in a voice she hardly recognized as her own, "How not? Loghain knows; Ser Cauthrien knows. _That's _why you and Anora want me to go - to do your dirty work! You want me to take out Howe for you..."

"Rilian," Alistair was saying, miserable and impotently angry, though not sure why, or with whom, "Howe's a monster - you said so yourself. The guard told us what he did in the Alienage; you said you wanted to deal with him." He was shocked to see Rilian was crying; it brought out protective urges long-suppressed and he put his arms around her.

"When Vaughan Urien kidnapped me - murdered my husband - raped my cousin - I killed him trying to escape. As Captain Arvall would tell you," she said, her mouth twisting, "I did more than just kill him - a person doesn't get that covered in blood just by fighting. It didn't make me feel any better - but I didn't feel any worse either. Afterwards I vomited until my guts ached - but for those few glorious moments, I savoured my revenge. I've never murdered before. And never since. If I kill Howe, it will be like that - in anger, or because I have to - not sneaking like an assassin into his home and butchering him to please my "betters"! I...I really thought - we could deal with Howe by exposing his crimes at the Landsmeet. I thought that's how you nobles did things..." She shook her head at her own naiveté.

Alistair, who loved her, but saw only the most obvious part of the problem, tried to take her in his arms. "Rilian, I'm so sorry - I had no idea..." He rounded on Arl Eamon, angry for the first time, "How could you even think of telling her to go back there if you knew what happened to her? Don't cry, Rilian - I'll go. Alone."

Rilian had known it would be out of the question for Alistair to go at all. Hearing Arl Eamon state this obvious fact to him, and Alistair's outraged response, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"As the future King you are too important to risk - and cannot allow your reputation to be tarnished by m...I mean, if the attempt to rescue Queen Anora _were _to result in Arl Howe's death, it would not look well for you to be involved."

Rilian thought again how cruel they had been to put Alistair in this position. He was meant to be a Warden - sharing danger with his friends, not forced to be protected from it. And she thought that right then she didn't give a rat's arse for how Alistair's involvement would _look_ - only that he shouldn't have to do it. She knew what it meant to commit murder - what it added to you, and what it took away. She would do whatever it took to keep Alistair from finding out.

"Warden - please..." To Rilian's surprise, Erlina was crying too. "I...I didn't mean - my mistress really is in danger...just - just not..."

Rilian looked at her, wiped her eyes on the back of her sleeve.

"I believe you," she whispered, "Let's go talk in my chambers - woman-to-woman; Elf-to-Elf, and you can tell me the truth."

Half-an-hour later, Rilian and Erlina were talking in Rilian's quarters over a mug of hot tea. A faint breeze rippled the velvet curtain; Rilian stared at it a moment in vague unease before turning to concentrate on what the other woman was saying. Initially she almost rolled her eyes at the discovery that Anora was objecting to the idea of marrying Howe. Alright, he was quite a bit older; but among her own people arranged marriages were the norm. It was the sort of thing Rilian's friends talked about, back home: stories and gossip about matchmaking, men cheating women out of a promised dowry, women's vengeance on them. The men had their own gossip, down at the docks, muttered into their mugs of ale or half-whispered from man-to-man during work, with guffaws and backslappings. It sounded just as petty coming from the Queen as from any Alienage girl; she was surprised the woman hadn't come up with anything better.

But when she actually listened to Erlina she realised the truth: she was not talking about an arranged marriage but a _forced_ one - a possibility that Teyrn Loghain had not sanctioned and was too naive to see coming.

"My Queen has had so many doubts. Not that her father retreated at Ostagar - but that he refused Orlesian aid when it would have saved her husband! She spoke in Council about putting the Blight ahead of the civil war - she wanted to allow the Orlesian Wardens to help us - but the Teyrn did not listen. He took the throne from under her - and wants to return it when the crisis is over as though it were a gift! She told me she is sure her father and Arl Howe are behind the unrest in the Alienage - she went to Howe to speak to him about it. And now he won't let her leave - and her father allows it, to stop her making trouble. But the Teyrn does not know the depths of Howe's ambition. He loves his daughter, Anora is sure of that - but once he finds out what Howe has done it will be too late. And Arl Howe will kill Loghain to get his hands on the throne. I have been in that estate for days now," Erlina shuddered convulsively - a movement that reminded Rilian of prison bars - of the cruelty of men like Vaughan - of broken things with sharp edges - "I have seen what he has done to those who opposed him. My Queen has no reason to trust you - you have put forward a rival for her throne, and if you did rescue her she would be in your hands - but that is better than remaining where she is."

Rilian put an arm around the woman, whose skin had gone oddly chill. "You were brave to come here," she said softly, "And even braver to think of going back there." Rilian's own memories of that estate still lived and burned, distorting her - it was one reason she had broken down when Arl Eamon insisted she go back. _But I'm not a helpless prisoner, now - I'm a Warden, and I have faced worse than this...As Duncan would say, whatever is necessary..._

"I'm going to help you," Rilian said quietly, "Just not the way you want. I won't murder Howe - how would that look in the Landsmeet? Besides, I have no reason to think the Queen won't double-cross me once I'm there - kill two birds with one stone. But I will figure something out."

Erlina looked for an instant as though she were about to protest, then thought better of it.

"What do you need?"

"I...I'm not sure entirely. You can start by sketching the exact layout for me - I only saw the downstairs rooms - the number and shift patterns of the guards - ways in and ways out..."

The velvet curtain rippled again, and shifted. Rilian knew this time there was no breeze. She froze, mind going still, remembering all Zevran's stories about hidden assailants - knives in dark bedrooms - elaborate niceties of intrigue and revenge. Why the hell had she left her sword at the other end of the room! She drew a dagger from her boot instead, warned Erlina with a gesture - and started forward in a lithe glide, moving on the balls of her feet.

"Really, Rilian," came a golden-soft, accented voice - a voice that was like a ripple of sunlight in Rilian's body, a voice that had told naughty stories over those long evenings on watch, "I'm a shameless eavesdropper, I'll admit it - but I wouldn't harm a hair on your lovely head."

"Zevran!" Rilian squealed - and the man who had indeed tried to kill her once stepped out from the shadows.

"It's just as well," he said thoughtfully, "That I'm not working for Loghain any more - Arl Eamon's security is shocking."

"How did you get in here - the front way or the back?" Rilian asked - and realised belatedly the rich vein of smut she had just uncovered.

Zevran did not disappoint. "The back way, of course - I know Arl Eamon doesn't bother to protect his!"

Rilian giggled, her own tense misery beginning to lift. Zevran's lambent eyes brightened at the sight of her - a look she couldn't mistake - and she wondered again why this effortlessly golden, charming person saw anything to cherish in her - a Warden whose life was consumed by duty.

"I only had to convince one guard to look the other way. Five silver pieces - and one was false. I'm a wicked man - I can't even bribe honestly."

"But why? The Arl would have let you in."

"Ah, but I wanted to see you first."

Catching the tone, Rilian turned to Erlina. "I'm sorry," she said quietly, "But would you give us ten minutes?"

"Certainly, my lady." Erlina bobbed a curtsey and glided from the room.

Zevran moved closer. As always, she was vaguely aware of the scent of him - light and spicy and exotic, a strange contrast to Alistair's heavy masculinity. Beneath the Antivan spice was something else - a warmth, a vitality of life, like the first morning of spring. Yet she thought of the way Alistair had held her and something squeezed her heart - no attraction could replace that.

"Rilian," Zevran said, and his tone was different now - soft and serious. "I've been to the palace. I couldn't get close enough to the Teyrn, of course - unlike that fool Eamon, he's too careful."

"He'd have to be," Rilian said wryly, "Surrounded by Ferelden's nobility. Besides, I don't want him dead - at least, not that way."

"You may change your mind when you read this," Zevran said - and gave a scroll into her hands. "I told you I couldn't get near him - but I've kept a close watch over his correspondence: mostly between him and Arl Howe, nothing really incriminating - until now."

Rilian stared as a list of familiar names leapt out at her. Her mind was slow - she didn't connect the names with Teyrn Loghain at first, didn't understand. There was Elder Mathis, who made a point of demanding his rights from their overlords - a sort of unofficial spokesman. There was Widow Shanis, whose son Tir had been a labourer at Ostagar - Rilian mourned him too... And Tomas, who drank a lot to forget an ugly incident with a shem supervisor at the docks...and Pic...and Girnis...

There were twelve names in all - and Teyrn Loghain's signature at the bottom of the document. He had also written a short note to Howe:

_Give this to Caladrius at the docks warehouse. The first ship can leave tonight. If possible, I want these troublemakers to fill the quota. They are costing men we need for the war effort. The Alienage is not defensible. We must get them out one way or another._

The ground under her began to tilt oddly - Rilian sat down hard on the bed without having meant to. She put the rest together. The nobles had said the coffers were empty - that the Regent didn't have the manpower to defend the city; at least, not with the civil war going on - and it was always..._always_...the most vulnerable who paid the price. She wanted her hands around Loghain's neck - and if she had had Arl Eamon in front of her now, she would have begged for the chance to eliminate Howe.

"But just killing Howe won't even do any good," she said hoarsely, "The first ship will leave tonight. Denerim's soldiers are Loghain's - Arl Eamon hasn't got the men to put a stop to this. Though I'm sure he'd be very glad of the dirt to dish at the Landsmeet," she practically spat. "I will go - but I'll need a plan."

"It won't be hard for us to get into the Alienage - we can scale the walls after dark - bribe the guards or take them out - once inside no-one will question the presence of a couple of Elves." Rilian smiled at Zevran's automatic self-inclusion - she hadn't even thanked him.

"Yes - after five years I know the docks like the back of my hand! We should be able to deal with any resistance. But what do we do then?" Rilian tilted her head up and a little leftward, as she did when she sang - her eyes went slightly out-of-focus as she studied a sight that only existed in her mind. Rilian was seeing the words: _not defensible_, and her home laid out before her, as on a map. As rapidly as coins clinking into a greedy noble's purse, she tried to prove Loghain wrong, tried positioning her men here...here...or here...

She failed. "Zevran," she said softly, "It's not enough just to rescue my people - even to kill the slavers. We've got to do it all - and do it right. We've got to stop Loghain - either by killing him, or making terms. We've got to stop any other nobles who might try the same thing. And, most of all, we've got to protect my people from the darkspawn."

Zevran blinked, not understanding.

"Even with our forces, we couldn't hold the Alienage. It wasn't built to be defensible. Once the darkspawn reach the capital, it's a deathtrap. If I could - if Elder Valendrian agreed to it - I'd take them on that ship myself: north and then west, to join our own army!"

"Do you really think they'd want that?"

"Slavery or death are the alternatives." Rilian shivered. "But it's a foolish plan - even if we could commandeer that ship, we couldn't use it."

Zevran smiled - reached out - stroked her back. "Did I ever tell you," he said, "Of my adventures with a ship's captain named Isabella..."

As soon as Zevran had explained his plan, Rilian left the room to speak to Arl Eamon. She had no time to lose. Zevran slipped out of the estate the way he'd arrived. He had no desire to see the Arl - didn't usually talk to the nobility unless they were employers or victims - and she couldn't blame him. She knocked once, sharply.

"Come in," the Arl called.

Alistair and Arl Eamon were sitting side-by-side in the study. They seemed to have patched up their differences. Rilian was glad in one way - she supposed the Arl really was the only family Alistair had now - and sorry in another.

"Alistair, would you mind giving us a moment?" the Arl said, after one look at her face.

Alistair was looking at her with so much concern that Rilian wanted to weep. She smiled at him instead - bent forward to kiss him lightly on the lips - then gave him a playful push toward the door. "Don't worry - we won't come to blows," she joked. Reassured, Alistair left the room.

Rilian turned to face her opponent, all traces of humour vanished from her face. Arl Eamon, standing too, tried to use his height but found it ineffectual.

"I am not going to murder Arl Howe," she told him. Her eyes were cool, and made no pretence at naiveté. "What I will do, is remove Teyrn Loghain's last source of income. You'll see from these documents that he's putting money in the coffers by selling Elves. If I can put a stop to it, he'll have no choice but to seek terms. He'll probably come to Howe's estate once word of the trouble gets out. We'll see if that alliance holds when the chips are down."

Eamon's grizzled brows met over his broad nose. An alliance with Loghain... He had felt this coming, but decided not to believe in it.

"I would have thought you'd _want_ to kill him, if what you say about the Elves is true," he said absently - wanting to get a look at the papers Rilian held and wondering if he could use them at the Landsmeet. Wondering, too, where she could have acquired them.

Rilian shrugged. "Killing is easy. I could kill Loghain - and the darkspawn likely will. What then? I want to _defeat_ him. I want to lead this alliance against the Blight and make sure neither Blight nor nobility can harm my people." Her tone was an unabashed mixture of hard arrogance and the vulnerability of someone who knew her own inexperience.

Arl Eamon opened his mouth, breathed deep, and paused. Rilian cut in ahead, with inflexible courtesy, "Of course, I shall leave you the papers. If I'm killed tonight, you will need them. I can only hope," here her voice was dry, "That the Landsmeet will actually _stop_ the slave trade and not just feign outrage over it." Rilian was sure she could have used the Elves in a Blood Magic ritual and that all Eamon would say was: "well done for finding the documents," but decided not to say so.

Eamon studied the documents carefully, in a satisfaction that he tried to present as frowning concern. How foolish of Loghain to have put his name to it...would this, on its own, be enough? If the Warden _were _killed, could he and Alistair win the Landsmeet? He had to admit he wasn't sure. The Warden had a strange charisma, and had caught the imagination of the public. He was honest enough with himself to know that charisma was a quality both he and Alistair lacked. Here, if ever there was one, was a young woman needing only a clumsy push at a critical moment to discover in herself a very dangerous person. She must be kept on side - or else destroyed.

"Warden," he tried, "Why tonight? What difference would it make to wait until..."

Rilian, who had been watching him like a duellist, made a small gesture to say she had not done speaking. After a crucial instant, Arl Eamon's voice trailed off.

"It makes a difference to the twelve people who are going to be taken tonight. I'm going, ser. Settle your mind to it, because we're short of time."

"Alistair..."

For just an instant, Rilian hesitated. Eamon saw emotions too swift too interpret, like watching raindrops strike still water: each impression unique, each too brief to distinguish. "Of course I won't take him with me. Even if he weren't who he is, a human would stand out too much."

"And what will you tell him?"

There was a very pregnant pause. "That you have sent me on an errand - into town, buying supplies, that sort of thing." The brightly unpredictable face was sheepish - no longer an antagonist but a young woman contemplating a little white lie. A trace of a smirk brushed her lips: "You can assure him it's nothing so foolish as busting into Arl Howe's estate."

"I see," Eamon muttered, "So - I'm the one who has to face Alistair with the truth if you don't come back."

Rilian smiled at him - a smile that gave Arl Eamon an inkling of why his experienced soldiers were willing to follow her to hell and back. "Well - yes. After all, you're the Arl. In charge of things. All that. Someone has to know where I went."

"You've learned last night's lessons well. You're as devious as a weasel."

"The better to defeat Teyrn Loghain. I'll see myself out, ser."

"Alistair..."

"...is who he is. I am who I am." Rilian's interruption was without anger, but it snuffed out further argument. Silent, resolute, she left the room.

_(Thank you to Arsinoe for suggesting a Rilian-Loghain alliance - your idea about the Howe/Anora forced marriage was inspired!) _


	5. Chapter 5: The Homecoming

Twilight was deepening into night as Rilian and Zevran stood before the Alienage wall. Thin, sharp needles of rain pattered down, striking the stone in a staccato rhythm and plastering red hair and blond to their scalps. Both wore light, nondescript leather armour; both were armed with longsword and dagger. Zevran carried a light bow, strapped to his back - Rilian did not. He teased about her inability to master what was still considered Elvenkind's signature weapon, and Rilian took it with good grace. From her earliest training with Adaia to Duncan's lessons, the sword was already her weapon of choice: face-to-face, hand-to-hand. She shrugged and said softly:

"If I were carrying a bow, I couldn't bring _this_," She patted the large goatskin bag at her belt. It sloshed. "Arl Eamon told Alistair the truth - I really was buying supplies." She winked. "Oil," she explained, and then patted the small pouch on her other side, "Flint and tinder."

Zevran's grin gleamed white in the darkness. His golden eyes flickered left and right, never still. He had left a handful of silver in the eager palm of the guard on duty - an enterprising sort with a knack for averting his eyes at exactly the right moment - and there were no other soldiers in sight.

Zevran uncoiled a length of rope from his belt and threw the grappling hook to the top of the wall. Rilian tried not to think about how flimsy it looked as he climbed up, as soundlessly as a bat, his movements graceful, confident, never wasted. She found herself thinking of Soris' pet cat, One-Eyed-Sal (so called not because she only had one eye, but because she had eyes of different colours: one pale blue, and one a brilliant green. In the dark, she was unnerving, with that single emerald orb staring out at you). Rilian had watched her glide silently through shadows and shrubbery, leaping to rocks and window-sills at a full run. Even when she fell short, she managed to make the mistake seem intentional, never losing her agile dignity. Zevran's lithe commitment to every action reminded her of that cat.

When he reached the top, Rilian followed him, though with far less grace. He had to help her up the last few feet, and when she reached the top she flattened herself along the foot-wide ledge and stared down at the human side of the city, catching her breath.

Covered torches were everywhere - hanging from walls, nestled into stone alcoves, lighting the way for an ever-busy market. Golden light spilled out, gilding the rain-slick streets with an iridescent sheen. Shouts and haggling and laughter drifted upward. The Orlesian oils sold by the woman Liselle scented the air like some dark, heavy perfumed flower. The shop rooftops offered a landscape of their own - Rilian suspected Zevran knew them as well as most of Denerim's citizens knew its streets. The rain could be seen as much as felt: a continuous spattering of light-rings on the surface of puddles. It began to fall more heavily, shining on the mirror-wet stone and streets that wound beneath her like glistening black snakes. The torchlight reflected in it, making the city blur in Rilian's vision, becoming a dark, sparkling jewel around her.

"Zevran, look!" she whispered, enchanted, "It's like - like one of those weird paintings Arl Eamon has: imp…something or other! Or the perfect map…" But Zevran had already started on his descent. Rilian bit her lip, rather ashamed of sight-seeing when there was work to be done. As skillfully as she could manage, she followed after him.

Zevran let go of the rope a few feet from the ground, shifting his weight a bit to compensate for the bow on his back. In one smooth move he drew the Crow dagger and landed in a crouch, eyes shifting left and right, checking for danger.

Rilian tried the same, only lost her grip on the rope a few moments before she meant to. Her world turned over, splintered into a rain-lashed vortex that spun crazily. Unlike Zevran, she did not land lithely on her feet. Her body exploded into a tornado of screaming bruises as she hit the ground and rolled over, coming to rest in a graceless heap at the assassin's feet. To her amazement, nothing seemed to be broken - not even the seal on the goatskin bag. Zevran extended a hand to help her up - his entire face lit up in a maddening smirk.

"Not a word," she muttered, glaring at him.

"My lips are sealed, my Warden."

On this side of the Wall, the scents and sounds and candlelight were snuffed out as though they had never been. Foul-smelling water pooled darkly in the gutters like blood; the crumbling wooden shacks seemed to sink into the mud like decaying molars. Even this early in the evening, the streets were completely deserted. That wasn't normal - even with the curfew Arl Urien had imposed, the streets of her home were normally lively well into the night. Men drained mugs after work at the docks, or sat in their doorways playing cards while their wives cooked and children played. Memories of all the evenings she and Shianni and Soris had spent as children: huddled in Alarith's store over tales of exotic lands, clutching mugs of the ale that Cyrion had forbidden them - or later, when it was just her and Shianni and the other girls, gossiping about lads and matchmaking - rose up in a fierce wave of longing; she struggled to hold back the tears. In the distance, the Arl of Denerim's estate towered over everything like an inky iceberg.

"Come on," Rilian said, when she was sure her voice was steady, "We'll go to my father's house - he'll fill us in with what's happened." She absolutely would not allow herself to consider any alternative. Zevran only nodded, and they made their way through narrow, winding streets. Darkened, faceless buildings were shut and boarded. The airless, lightless place smelled of mold and rot, of long-lost hopes. Rilian saw only one figure, lying curled on his side as though sleeping. It was Timon: an elderly man, crippled in a dockside accident. Rilian had known him, and given him what she could, though he'd been too proud to accept Cyrion's offer of shelter. She called out to him - then stopped.

His dead face was disfigured by something that looked like plague. An emaciated cat was eating one of his hands.

Rilian turned away, bent double, and threw up against the side of a building, the vomit hardly making a difference amid the general filth.

"If that's what it looks like, we'd best not get too close," Zevran warned her.

For a moment, Rilian wanted to yell at him: the heartless assassin who'd seen so much death one more hardly registered. She yearned for Alistair - he would have understood: he'd taken the sights of Dust Town so much to heart he hadn't even considered supporting anyone but Prince Bhelen. Then she stopped, ashamed. She hadn't lived like Zevran: what right did she have to judge?

"Plague on top of slavery," Zevran murmured, "Well - with any luck the slavers will get it too; one less problem to deal with. And just because it took one old man doesn't mean your family will be affected."

Rilian managed a tremulous smile and squeezed his hand. "You're good at this, aren't you? You really are a sweet man."

"Just what every guy wants to hear," Zevran muttered, "Come on; we have work."

When they reached the little wooden door that marked the entrance to Cyrion's house on the corner, Rilian's heart almost stopped. It looked as empty and boarded up as all the rest. She stood for a moment, frozen. It had been easier to face the dragon than it was to approach - so she walked up quickly, face white and set as though in battle.

There was no answer to her knock - but something moved faintly inside: a thud and then a scrape.

"Father," she called out, "Cyrion - it's me. It's Ril…"

The door was unbolted and opened a crack - and Rilian looked into a face very like hers though rounder, the woman shorter and more feminine. Stared into features warped into a caricature of the Shianni she knew. Eyes like moons. Throat muscles ridged like steel cables. Lips pulled back in a grimace of fear and determination; one hand holding a kitchen knife.

That knife dropped to the ground with a clatter. "Ril? It _is_ you? I thought - they said - Ostagar…"

A moment later they were in each other's arms, Shianni stroking her cousin's hair as though it were Rilian who needed comforting. Laughing, crying, Shianni looked past Rilian to Zevran; sized him up with expert eyes. "I must say you do have good taste!"

"I…" Rilian stammered, "He's not - I mean, this is Zevran. Zevran - meet my cousin, Shianni."

Now, she thought, was not the time to explain about Alistair. She had spent hours imagining the moment she introduced him to her family - surely once they met him they would love him, as she did. But they'd have to meet him first: _if I just say, "I'm seeing a shem - by the way, he's the future King"… and to Shianni - well, now's hardly the time anyway…_

It made sense to wait. So why did she feel furtive, ashamed?

There were two other people at home besides Shianni. Rilian's face lit up as she saw Soris. Her other cousin was slouched insouciantly against the wall in a familiar pose - but the drawn closed look on his face was new.

"So - you're _the_ Warden?" he asked, "The one everyone's been talking about? The dragon-slayer? I might have known." He gave her an oddly flat half-smile.

The third person wasn't her father, but a human - a familiar one! At first glance he always looked old - but Rilian knew he wasn't. The hairless head was scarred from flame; the milky, sightless eyes stared out of a young man's face. Ser Otto had been the Templar assigned to the Alienage for several years - he had escorted Mother Boann when she came to teach or perform ceremonies. She had seen Arl Urien's guards make fun of his faltering steps once, and had stepped forward and offered him her arm. _I don't need pity_, he had snapped. _Just as well_, she had replied, _I had to waste mine on those ignorant shems who never learned basic manners_. The response had startled him into becoming her friend. He had even visited their house and sampled her father's famous cooking (Cyrion could make even gruel taste good; what he had done with the food the knight brought had to be tasted to be believed).

"Ser Otto - it's so good to see you again!"

The Templar smiled. He had always liked Rilian - and enjoyed the fact that she said a sentence like that without the slightest shred of embarrassment (unlike most of his comrades, who always dried up at mention of the word "see").

"We held your funeral service five months ago," he told her, "Along with those of Mother Boann and Tir and all the others who went to Ostagar. I…" his face seemed to come alive, then freeze, "I suppose there is no chance…"

"I'm sorry," Rilian whispered, "There were only four of us that made it out. My…my fellow Grey Warden, Alistair - a Circle Healer named Wynne - and my mabari, Ravenous."

She, too, closed her eyes. For long months after Adaia had died her father had been so sunk in grief she'd had to look after him. It had been Mother Boann who had helped her, who had been mentor, teacher, friend. She had always hoped the woman and Ser Otto would get together - her instinct for matchmaking had gone into overdrive. But both had been too devoted to their vows - and now the young cleric had died as she had lived: helping others. At least - in Rilian's reality she had died, though she hadn't seen it, because the alternative was…at once, an iron curtain came down in her mind, shutting off that train of thought.

"Well, I am glad that, at least in your case, the ceremony proved premature," he said softly, the ghost of a smile flickering about his lips.

Shianni bustled about, the clear mistress of the house, making tea for Rilian and Zevran and Ser Otto (Soris was already drinking what smelled like strong ale - Rilian was puzzled; he'd never been used to it before - she and Shianni had always ended up picking him off the floor at Alarith's) and pulling up wooden crates so they could sit (Ser Otto had the only proper chair). Rilian could almost believe this was a normal reunion - almost forget the dread that surrounded them and the reason she had come. She petted the little dog, Helm-Piddle, who was curled as close as he dared to their meager fire. The lion's share was occupied by Soris' cat, Sal. She was as thin and scruffy as all the other Alienage cats, yet there was a certain weird beauty about her that appealed to Rilian. She was very pale and very sleek - with a long pointed face, very long ears, and almond-shaped, mismatched eyes. She possessed the large paws and rippling hard muscle structure of a born hunter, and right now her arched back and bristling fur showed her displeasure at the intrusion. The first time she had encountered Helm-Piddle she had puffed up like three cats, uttered a fearful miaow of hatred and defiance, and launched herself at him. Helm-Piddle had known ever afterwards who was boss - Rilian found herself wondering if she dared bring Ravenous home, and a smile crept onto her face. Perhaps deciding that she did not like the company - or perhaps that it was time to hunt - the cat rose lithely to her feet and marched disdainfully past Rilian with her tail held high. She leaped atop the box - her tail twitched once against Rilian's thigh - then up onto the windowsill. The boards Shianni had nailed to the inside left just enough space for her to squeeze though. For just an instant she glared into the room with queenly hauteur - then she was gone.

When the little group were sat together Rilian could no longer avoid the question she dreaded.

"Shianni," she whispered, "Where's father?" _Why were you so afraid when I knocked - has it started already? Or is he…_

Shianni's face crumpled. "I'm so sorry, Ril. He's…"

…_No…_

"He got sick three days ago, along with Elder Valendrian. No-one knows what started the plague - it's not like anything I've seen. There are healers here - shems - they took them into hospital along with the others - but they won't let anyone see them!" Shianni's voice had risen - she banged the table in frustration and got up to pace about, "No-one will answer questions. But I think it's strange that healers arrived at the same time as the sickness - and Ser Otto says…"

"I don't think it's a natural sickness. I'm a Templar - I can sense dark magic at work. That's why I'm here - to find answers. I tried to tell my superiors but they…feel I'm making too much of a perfectly natural tragedy."

_They feel that once a man loses the ability to fight he's not worth listening to,_ Rilian thought angrily, _Or that he's making it up to regain some former glory…_

But what she said was, "If the healers have started the plague how do they protect themselves? Is there magic that can do that - take members of one race, and leave another…

The very thought was so monstrous she paled. She had seen Ser Otto's scars - gained in a duel with a maleficar - long before she had met mages like Wynne. Everything she had seen in that Tower had only confirmed her belief that unchecked magic was dangerous. _I can't see how any group of people can have that much power that others can't share without being tempted to misuse it_, she had said to Wynne - who had agreed. And yet - it had been the Templars who had run through a boy of fourteen, and men like Vaughan didn't need magic to be sadistic. _It's not the magic that corrupts; it's having power…_

"I'm afraid I believe so," Ser Otto said heavily, "What I don't understand is - why?"

"I know," said Rilian bitterly, "Zevran intercepted a letter from Teyrn Loghain giving Arl Howe permission to sell Elves into slavery. The list had twelve names on it: Mathis, Shanis, Tomas, Pic, Girnis…"

"All arrested this morning," Shianni said, "We'd expected something like it for a while: there'd been trouble - the new Arl's courtyard got smashed… it's why everyone's hiding in boarded-up houses. But this - if the plague's a cover - they could take a lot more before we even questioned it. By the time we found out, there wouldn't be enough of us left to resist."

"Magic allied to the greed of slavers and the ruthlessness of a man like Teyrn Loghain is a recipe for pure evil," Ser Otto said flatly, "We must stop it."

Rilian grinned - got to her feet, "That's why Zev and I are here."

To her surprise Soris stepped forward angrily. "How?" he demanded, "Anything you do will just make things worse for the rest of us. You weren't here when the old Arl's men took revenge for our rescue of you and Shianni and the others. You didn't see…"

Sick at heart, Rilian watched Shianni get to her feet, pale and trembling and fighting back tears. "What are you saying, cousin - that you wish you hadn't come? That you and Nelaros had just left the five of us to that…that shem? I know folks were hard on you after Ril left: they blame the blameless, the victim - people always do. But how could things be _worse _than slavery; we should be glad these two are here - we should help!"

It was question Rilian had sometimes asked herself. If Soris and Nelaros hadn't come after them she and all the others would have shared Shianni's fate - but they would live. Nelaros would be alive…she could find it in herself to wish they hadn't come, just for that. She thought about power - about her plan to force Loghain to terms - what would the cost be to her people if it went wrong? Wasn't it wrong to force her plan on them - _for their own good_ - just because she had the _power_ to do so? What gave her the right to decide?

"Shianni," she said softly, cutting across the tension, "I need you to think about something. It's not a choice between slavery and safety. If we do manage to put a stop to the slave trade, our community will either be stuck here - in a city soon to be attacked by darkspawn - or fleeing as refugees, with nothing but the clothes on their backs. I..I even thought: Zev and I have the use of a ship; we could take some people - the ones marked for arrest anyway, anyone who wants to fight - to join our army. But I'm a Warden - any men I lead, it's towards the darkspawn, not safety. And we couldn't take nearly everyone. The Alienage isn't defensible - anyone who stays will be hiding in cellars praying the creatures overlook them."

Shianni was glaring at Rilian, getting more and more angry. "Well - that fate's the same as for any humans left in Denerim; why should arrogant shems get to decide that _we _can be sold like cattle - _for our own good! _We were both prisoners once - I don't know about you, Ril, but I decided: never again. As a family, we live free, or we die free."

Shianni was staring at her cousin in baffled exasperation. Rilian was magnificent: in the armour that she wore casually, the flat sinewy muscles of her tanned arms criss-crossed with battle-scars. She looked as if she had grown several inches: there was pride in her bearing, an unconscious carry-over of command. Now that Shianni knew she was _the_ Warden, those stories became internalized: something for their family to take pride in. Yet her amber eyes could only be called haunted, as if all her sights of the world beyond the Alienage walls had made her more frightened, not less. They were the eyes of a child who has seen that there really are monsters under the bed.

"_I _would rather be a slave than be taken by darkspawn," Rilian said, and the haunted look only deepened.

She said no more. Shianni wondered why she wouldn't share. They were close as sisters; Shianni the elder by two years: Rilian had always confided in her. There were changes going on in her: dark, wrenching concerns and realizations that Shianni couldn't guess at. She sensed it all as a warning, and winced inwardly. Rilian was a good person; eager to do the right things. Why did she feel that now, when Rilian was most at risk and needed someone to be afraid _for_ her, that she was a little bit afraid _of _her? And why in the world did that make her feel all the more protective? It was confusing.

"Maybe you're right, cousin," Shianni allowed, "It's not really for either of us to decide - it's for Valendrian. But they've taken him - and the reason those shems took him first is so we'd lose the power to decide our own fate. Just for that, I say we do this. I'm in - I'll help you any way I can."

"Shianni…"

But her cousin had already reached under the floorboards and pulled up the bow that they had practiced with, in secret, under Adaia's guidance. Rilian knew now that it was hardly a proper bow - not one such as the Dalish or human soldiers used. That knowledge had dried up among the city elves: what they had could take a man in light armour at very close range, but no more. Still - this entire thing would be fought in close quarters. Shianni handed her something - and Rilian gasped, her eyes suddenly full of tears.

"This is mother's dagger - I didn't know father had kept it!"

"I'm sure she'd want you to have it," Shianni said gently.

Rilian again opened her mouth to talk Shianni out of coming - realized it would do no good, and shut it. Ser Otto was standing next to Zevran - to her surprise the assassin was acting as his guide:

"If we're taking on mages you're going to need me," the knight said with a grin, "You can be my eyes - and I'll provide the Cleansing Aura, Holy Smite and Mana Drain!"

Rilian grinned too, excitement beginning to spark in her like flame. No matter her doubts, coming together in a group like this to defend their home was thrilling. Last of all, she looked at Soris.

"I'm sorry about what happened after I left," she told him quietly, "And if - you feel it's best…"

But Soris was already holding the longsword he'd borrowed from Duncan all those months ago - she hadn't known he'd kept it. He looked at her and shrugged.

"Someone's got to keep you out of trouble."

The five of them headed out the door, down rain-lashed, deserted streets, until they reached the centre of their community. The great tree towered up into the sky, as if above all mortal concerns. Rilian knew as little as all Alienage elves about the worship of her ancestors: _were they gods, or just planted to remind us of them? I'll have to ask Lanaya… _

The large building the "healers" had appropriated had been a storehouse once - Rilian saw two guards at its entrance.

"Zevran," she ordered, "Scout out the rear of the building - I want numbers and escape routes. You three, stay here - for now."

Zevran was already moving, alert as a stalking cat, making no more sound than the narrow shadow he cast. An instant later, even the shadow was gone: he disappeared into the night so completely it was as though he'd been swallowed by it. Rilian remained with the others, considering. She knew this building led to a series of abandoned apartments; in turn these led to the docks warehouse. The question was: fight their way through, or go round? There were any number of other routes to the docks, where they could avoid combat until the very end - but that would leave enemies between them and home, and they didn't know where the slaves were being held. _Better to fight our way through, if the numbers allow it…_

The minutes dragged by - Rilian strained to pierce the night, to follow Zevran's progress, but she could see nothing. Soris began to fidget, hands curling and uncurling round his sword-hilt, shifting from foot to foot. His twitchy aggressiveness might have acted on her frayed nerves, if she hadn't seen it before in raw recruits.

"Patience," she murmured, forcing a grin, and he began to relax, her calmness rubbing off. Shianni's amber eyes were steady - she always had been, even in their worst moments.

Zevran's hand on her shoulder out of the darkness made her jump - she swallowed her shriek of startlement before it left her lips, glaring. "Show-off."

"There's an exit round the back; one guard, already taken care of. And a group in the apartments beyond."

"How can you tell."

"Noise. Firesmoke. And traps at the entrance, which I've disarmed. The question is: around or through?"

"You and I will take care of the "hospice" - the Elves might be in there. Afterwards: I want you, Shianni and Soris to take the long way round and come at the docks warehouse from the back."

"But that just leaves you and Ser Otto…"

"Indeed," Rilian said, squeezing the knight's hand, lips quirked in an impish grin. "I have a bluff in mind - a good bluff's always more important than muscle: you taught me that, Zev."

Rilian and Zevran crept towards the two guards, from shadow to shadow. Rilian copied Zevran, and for once her night skills matched his. When she stood a few feet from the nearest man, she struck. The flat of her blade cracked him behind the ear. He grunted; sagged sideways. Rilian caught him; clapped a hand over his mouth. "Quiet. One sound - you die. Understand?"

The man nodded, fear-rounded eyes glistening. Slowly, cautiously, Rilian loosened her grip. The dark, terrified eyes remained locked on hers. Arching his back, the man pulled away. He opened his mouth to call for help. The attempt was less than a yelp - a pitiful squeak choked by the blade in his throat. Rilian threw herself on top of him. They struggled, rolling on the rain-slick ground, stones scraping under them, the man still trying to cry out. His blood mixed with the rain and mud; black under the moonlight.

Rilian rolled off him and Zevran - for the second time that evening - gave her a hand up.

"And that is why you must ignore your first impulses, my fair Warden," he admonished, "They are often merciful."

Rilian gave a shaky snort. Zevran's turn of phrase could lighten even the darkest day. He had a knack for finding dark humour in the worst of times, and often what he said carried a sting of sense. She had sat with him in taverns, or on watch, sharing stories. Zevran's cynical view of the world was expressed with a knowing delight and an ability to laugh at himself as well as others. Rilian, who often felt too much - loved or hated too passionately - to see the funny side of life, often found her anger over suffering and injustice was soothed by listening to him.

He had already taken care of his man. Without a word, the two kicked open the hospice door - all surprise was lost anyway. Instead of Elven patients, there were only two guards, sat at the far end of the building playing cards. One raised a crossbow - Zevran took him down with an arrow. The other came at Rilian, who ducked under his swing and came up with a swift jab of her dagger to his throat.

They rejoined the others quickly, and split up: Rilian and Ser Otto heading for the apartments; the others taking the longer route to the warehouse proper.

The Warden and Templar met no resistance until they were several doors down. A frightened Elven servant warned them what to expect and then bolted for the corridor towards the Alienage, getting as far away from what was coming as he could.

Rilian opened the next door into what looked like a headquarters of some kind: an opulent rug covered the dirty wooden floorboards; a fire blazed in the grate. Two crossbowmen guarded the door at the far side, and a dark-haired woman who had to be a captain of some kind sat at a desk, reading a scroll. She rose and turned with feline grace; a slender sword leapt to life in her hand.

Rilian gasped. "How can you - an Elf - be a part of this!"

One lustrous black eyebrow raised. "Oh, really," the woman drawled, "Do you think that makes us kin? I am a member of the Tevinter Imperium first; the Minrathous Circle second. Those are the things that matter. In Tevinter many of those who sell Elves into slavery are their own kin - and they profit by it. In my country, Elves can be slaves - or Magister Lords. Ability and power decide. Is your country really so different? Fereldens drone on about freedom - but it was the Hero of River Dane himself who signed the papers. Our presence here is authorized."

"I suppose your mages are responsible for the plague, too," Rilian said. Her voice sounded dry and unmoved, vaguely heartless - she kept a lid on the seething rage it barely covered, remembering their bluff. "If it targets Elves, how do you stay immune?"

In response the woman held up a jewelled ring on one slender hand. Ser Otto gave an angry start beside her. He could not see it, Rilian knew - he must sense something.

"Magic can cut both ways," the woman said, "But don't worry. Come dawn we have all the cargo we need - for now. The plague will vanish when we leave."

…_Or when you die…_

"Do you still want to fight me?" Dark eyes were glittering, mocking, as the woman sized up the other Elf, taking in the armour, weapons, the lithe physical grace that Rilian wasn't even aware of. "Another Elf that bows to no-one."

It was very similar to something the fierce and beautiful Isabella had said to her, when Rilian, Zevran and the captain of the Siren's Call had met in the Pearl earlier today. Isabella had agreed to help them - in exchange for all the gold they had on them and the promise of more when they reached Rilian's army. It would still not have been enough - but she had made allowances for old times' sake. Those old times had been gone over, in lurid detail, over wine and song, to Rilian's delight and Zevran's embarrassment. Amid the soft music and languor, candlelight gleaming in Zevran's golden eyes and shining on the woman's soft dark skin, Rilian had felt drawn to the two of them in a way that surprised her, though all they had done was talk. When Isabella had drawn a comparison between them Rilian had felt flattered. Now this woman - a fellow Elf - did the same and all she could feel was disgust.

"I'm afraid, madam, that my Order cannot allow that." Ser Otto strode forward, mace glittering in the candlelight, a picture of confidence. The woman could not see the milky eyes in the dim light, but she recognized the distinctive armour.

The woman sneered. "I assure you: Teyrn Loghain has full authority to…"

"The authority of the Regent of Ferelden does not supersede the authority of the Chantry, as you well know. Reverend Mother Boann has sent me to put an end to the Teyrn's misguided decision. The Chantry and Tevinter do not have the best of histories: I am sure the Magister Lords would not look kindly on your leader risking another Exalted March for the sake of a meager profit."

The sneer held - but beneath it the woman looked a little worried.

"I only wish to talk," Ser Otto said soothingly, "If you will take me to your superior - Caladrius, I believe - we can discuss it."

"I…suppose the request is reasonable. But I warn you - if you try anything foolish, my guards will kill you."

Rilian hooked an arm around Ser Otto's as the woman led the way, careful to make it look as though she were leaning on him for protection. The two crossbowmen flanked the party like large bookends.

They made their way across a series of bare rooms and winding corridors. Rilian plotted the route Zevran and the others would take, and tried to calculate how long they would need to keep Caladrius talking. At last the long, dusty corridor opened like a clam shell into vast space. They stood on a wooden gangplank some fifteen feet above the warehouse floor. The building stretched away from her in all directions. Its black spaces and high rafters swallowed up the tiny, guttering lamp and echoed for her with the memory of familiar shouts, curses, orders - and occasional laughter. When she had worked here it had seemed much smaller, packed with people and goods, a hive of activity. Now there were only bars, behind which her people were packed like animals. Two guards patrolled it - one had his crossbow trained on her with emotionless, singular intensity. She did not search for familiar faces among the prisoners - for her father - she had to keep her mind on Caladrius. The woman sent one of her guards to fetch him.

As soon as the slaver arrived, flanked by another two guards, the shadows fled like live things from the light of his glowing blue staff. The heavy breath of velvet robes swirled across the floor; a wave of revulsion shook her as she took in the smooth-shaven head and carefully waxed moustache, the air of louche confidence.

"Really, Devera, I hope you have good reason for this?"

"I do, my lord - these "visitors" say they are from the Chantry…"

"And so you decided to bring the _Grey Warden_ straight to me. Foolish, foolish Devera…"

"Grey Warden?" Despite the unraveling of their plan, Rilian treasured the shock and chagrin on that haughty face. She smiled at the woman, relishing the acid of it, and hoped the woman read the unspoken promise: _you'll go first…_

"Stairs to your right," Rilian whispered to Ser Otto, "Two guards on the warehouse far side, another two centre, around the mage."

"I sense him. How long do we need?"

"A few more minutes." _Come on, Zevran…_

"Really, my dear, you must get out more." The mage seemed to be deciding to help them, wasting time ridiculing his companion. "You know, mix with the locals."

So much for equality, Rilian thought. Ability and power might decide in Tevinter, but it clearly didn't take much to expose the old prejudices. The Elven woman's face had gone rather white and set.

At last the mage tired of that game - he turned back to the main challenge. "Well - an unexpected guest is still a guest," he said smoothly, "And since you must see that you are outnumbered, perhaps you would like to talk terms?"

"Indeed, I would," Ser Otto said, his voice carrying a strength that impressed Rilian. Without warning, he suddenly turned away from her and began to descend the stairs with almost flawless confidence, following the beacon of the slaver's magic. "My companion might be a Grey Warden, but I represent the Chantry's interests in this matter, and wish to discuss an arrangement…" He talked until he was positioned a few feet from the mage. Rilian watched Caladrius like a hawk: she saw him size up the Templar, read the calculation on his face. By all appearances the man was blind - yet he had walked so unerringly towards his position that he had to wonder.

Then Zevran, Soris and Shianni burst through the door at the far end.

"What treachery…"

The crossbowmen guarding the cages went down - Zevran's and Shianni's arrows in their chests. Rilian was already moving. Fang stabbed through the armour-join of the nearest guard. She jerked it free and engaged Devera, who met her with sword and dagger, careful to keep the woman between her and the second guard. Devera was good: her twin weapons weaved in seamless patterns, her slender body never there to hit. It was like fighting a snake. Through the riot of attack, dodge and parry, Rilian was half-aware of Ser Otto's powers: that strange wave that seemed to radiate from him, driving away the heavy darkness of Caladrius' magic. The air around them took on the fresh, washed feel of a spring morning after rain. Soris, Zevran and Shianni were taking on the remaining three guards. The fight took on a surreal quality. The guards loomed in the light of Caladrius' staff, and every sound echoed ominously. Wounded men screamed, and the walls repeated it over and over. Outmatched by Devera's skill, Rilian found herself pushed backwards. She dropped down - a variation on the most basic and dirty trick in a gutter fighter's repertoire - and kicked upwards. The woman dodged - and Rilian turned the kick into a scissors chop of her legs, sweeping the woman's feet from under her. Devera landed heavily, the breath knocked out of her. Rilian was on her instantly, the tip of her sword pointing to the woman's throat.

"Mer…"

Rilian leaned into it, putting her whole weight behind it; Devera jerked and writhed once, then went still.

Turning, Rilian looked over the railing and saw to her horror that Caladrius had drawn a wicked looking blade. Ser Otto could counter any magic - but he couldn't see the weapon coming.

"To your left!" she screamed. The Templar dodged - but Caladrius recovered to slash again, blade scraping against the fine Templar armour, grinning wickedly like a cat toying with its prey.

Rilian vaulted right over the railing and leapt down. When she hit the ground she collapsed into herself and rolled to absorb the impact. Then, despite the numbness in her feet and legs, she rose to join the fight. _Ha - Zevran didn't have to help me up this time…_

She would still not have been in time to defend Ser Otto - Caladrius could have killed the knight before Rilian got there. But he was too focused on her sudden appearance, bloodied weapon raised. He threw down his own sword and raised his hands, a fixed smile slashed across waxen features. There was a pleading whine in his voice, and Rilian was reminded of a half-starved Alienage dog that had wagged its tail in welcome before snapping at her throat.

"Warden - _surely_ we can come to some arrangement…I know Teyrn Loghain is an enemy of yours: I can give you these documents as evidence…"

"I could take them from your body," Rilian growled - but even as she made the threat she knew the man had her. Not because of anything he offered, but because he was making her _talk_ - and Rilian couldn't kill in cold blood.

"Then," he cast about desperately, "I could…cast a spell…enhance your attributes: the life-force of…these slaves…"

A red haze swirled about the room; the loathsome voice echoed oddly in Rilian's ears. When the rage passed, she saw the slaver was dead. His stomach was slashed, a gaped mouth, exposing a mass of wet things. Her dagger, clutched in her trembling hand, was bloody to the hilt.

Rilian drew a short, sharp breath; shook her head to clear it. She looked around, assessing danger, assessing cost. There was none: all her companions were unhurt, save for Zevran tying a makeshift bandage around one arm. He winked and shrugged; she saw the injury was superficial, the trickle of blood already slowing as he applied pressure. Soris was shaking slightly; she remembered that white, blind look he'd had in Arl Urien's estate. Shianni, the only one of them who'd never fought before, put a steadying hand on her cousin's shoulder. Ser Otto's young, resolute face was serene, steadfast. His lips were quirked in a small smile, and something like joy crinkled the corners of his eyes - the joy of a man who has found, unexpectedly, something he had thought lost forever. _You faced this blind_, Rilian thought, _I've seen some brave people in my time, but you… _She sheathed her blade, took his hand with her unbloodied right, and linked an arm through his.

"We did it, ser!"

"We certainly did."

The two stood together a moment, sharing triumph.

Zevran padded over, and knelt to take the documents from the slaver's body. The parchment with Teyrn Loghain's seal was soaked in blood - the writing almost illegible.

"Good thing we have the letter," he said. He looked from the slaver's body to Rilian with a very odd expression on his face. "I worry about you, sometimes, my Warden," he said. "A thing like that becomes completely personal to you."

Nonplussed, Rilian stared. "Would it be better if I just killed, like swatting flies?"

"It might be better for you. Anger in combat clouds judgement. And fighters who feel too much always go a little mad."

Rilian riveted on him that gaze of peculiar intensity with which she told a secret. "I can never just kill. I know it; I've felt it. It's then that I…"

"Rilian!"

Rilian turned at her cousin's shout. Shianni and Soris were struggling to undo the locks on the cages. She and Ser Otto raced over to help. Rather than loot the bodies for a key, Zevran merely pulled out a long, slender lockpick. Hands working in amazing circles, he had the cages open in a matter of moments. "Amateurs," he scoffed. The Elven prisoners - nearly fifty in all - crowded around them: Rilian saw the twelve rioters among them: Elder Mathis - that wonderful old man looked like he had fire in his belly still! - Widow Shanis - Tomas - Pic - Girnis…These people looked the least shocked by what had happened: they had been arrested, so had known what to expect. The others were frozen in shock: the pain-filled eyes in their sickness-ravaged faces were wide. There was Elva - who had been so rude the day of her wedding - Rilian put an arm around her and the dazed woman leaned into the contact. She saw the other faces through a blur of tears: Rica, Shand, Yarly… Elder Valendrian, calm and serene as the Vhenadahl tree, even in this crisis. And there was…

"Father!"

Cyrion's tired eyes in his worn face lit up at the sight of her; he opened his arms and she raced into them. Her father only came up to her chin, yet he made her feel protected. She felt the stooped, shaking shoulders - the wiry upright strength - the palms that stroked her hair dry and rough as old bark after a lifetime's hard labour. It was as though a piece of her that had been missing since the day she left home had just slotted into place. She was centered, whole, no longer in danger, not even from herself.

The little group gathered, milling, most too shocked to speak, while Valendrian, Cyrion, Shianni and Rilian organized things as best they could. The Hahren listened calmly as the two girls explained what had happened, and made his decision.

"Those who were arrested must go on this ship: their lives are forfeit. Anyone else must make his or her own decision. Had we time, I'd rouse the rest of the community - but I fear the chaos would alert the Arl's men. Best to leave now: that way those who do stay will be found in their homes, unconnected to this trouble. I will remain, of course: the folk need me."

"I'll go join this army," Soris decided, a touch of bitterness creeping into his voice, "Life hasn't been good for me here for some time."

"I, too," Shianni added. Rilian hadn't expected anything else from her: _live free or die free…_

"And I." Rilian gaped in amazement at her father.

"Don't look so surprised, lass: I'll wager that army of yours needs a good cook. You certainly look like they haven't been feeding you enough."

Not sure whether to laugh or cry, Rilian did both. She wasn't sure whether the tears came out of pride in her family, or fear for them.

Used to desperate situations, the Elves organized quickly, and without fuss. A further fifteen decided to join Rilian's men: those without families at home, or those who had their families with them - Rilian saw an old couple and a teenage son. The rest filed out, following Valendrian back the way Rilian had come.

Ser Otto had not left Rilian's side; when she looked at him, he sensed the movement, and smiled. "I'll go with you. We work well together."

Rilian would not insult him by arguing. "We do," she said simply.

Together, the little group left the warehouse for the docks. Rilian, Zevran and Ser Otto took point. The fresh, salty air hit Rilian like a caressing wave. She breathed deeply and sighed.

"Mmm - just like home," Zevran murmured, "You have the corrupt politicians too. Antivan leather boots: check. Fish chowder…"

Rilian giggled.

The rain had stopped. The sea formed a vast crescent in the harbour, glittering with reflected stars. Those stars paled even as she watched: dawn was perhaps thirty minutes away. Already the eastern horizon was tinged pink. The moored ships were stately, silent: all save one. The Siren's Call glimmered with activity: Isabella and her men making preparations, ready to fulfill their part of the bargain. The woman had been going to leave anyway: _I'll sail as far as the Anderfels if I need to, to escape the Blight_. _The sea will look after her own…_ It was no great inconvenience to make a small detour northward to Rilian's army. So many times Rilian had loaded and unloaded cargo on these ships, and daydreamed of sailing on one, toward distant shores. For her people that dream had nearly been a nightmare: at the thought, she squinted to where the nearest ship was moored.

"That's the one," Zevran agreed, "Those colours are Tevinter's." Rilian nodded grimly and as Shianni led Ser Otto and the others towards Isabella's people she and Zevran headed down to the beach, towards the row of small boats. It was not enough just to kill Caladrius: the rest of the Tevinters would be in the city, enjoying its pleasures before departure. Or Loghain might have other men to carry out his plan.

A single guard stood watch, but beside him were three mabaris chained to a post. Quickly, almost nonchalantly, Zevran nocked his bow and fired. In the same instant the guard released the dogs. They circled, growling. In the faint light, their rippling muscles were a dance of shadows; they looked like a single, erratic entity. Rilian spoke to them without words, the way she did with Ravenous. She growled, and jabbed with her sword, warning them off. Two of the dogs held their ground, heads low. The third, the leader, advanced.

"The blood," Zevran warned, "It excites them."

The leader leapt for her throat. Rilian dodged to the side - the descending slash of her right arm decapitated the dog. A spreading pool of blood soaked the rubble, black and gleaming.

The other dogs disappeared into the night, fading away like smoke. Rilian looked away from the pitiful corpse, wincing. She'd looked with near-detachment at the carnage in the warehouse, but she saw Ravenous in that ruined heap, and flinched.

Zevran pushed the nearest boat out to sea, and Rilian followed him. Once inside, he rowed with swift, sure strokes. _Well, of course_, Rilian thought, _He can scale walls without falling in a heap; disarm traps I can't even spot - why wouldn't he be good at this too?_ The current pushed and pulled like a live thing, and Rilian gave herself up to the experience, one hand trailing in the black, frigid water. Her fingers went numb almost immediately. They came alongside the looming hulk of the vessel, towering over them like some bleak monument. Rilian hoped - for their sake and even for that of the Tevinter crew - that the ship was as deserted as it looked. Zevran threw his rope - the grappling hook caught the side. When they climbed up they found themselves on a grey expanse of deck, oddly insubstantial in the fading moonlight. Rilian uncorked the goatskin flask - sloshed oil generously about the deck, the mast, the ropes. When she lit the oil the orange flames licked upwards, hesitantly at first, but quickly catching hold. Their work complete, Rilian and Zevran quickly lowered themselves back into the small craft, and rowed hard for shore.

Isabella's men were still loading the last of their cargo. The Elves watched Rilian's progress from the deck. The first shouts drifted to them from the warehouse.

"Hurry!" Zevran urged her. They raced towards Isabella's people just as the first guards arrived on scene - guards wearing the grey-and-yellow insignia of Arl Howe. They were not going to make it before the men caught up with the crew. In unspoken agreement, Rilian and Zevran turned to face the threat, swords leading.

Yelling, firing arrows, the guards rushed them. Between Rilian and Zevran's strikes and the accurate return fire of Isabella's men on deck, the shore erupted in pandemonium. Men fell, screaming. The two Elves held off the milling, cursing crowd. A commanding voice called for reinforcements. Men in Tevinter uniforms began to pour from the warehouse. Zevran and Rilian raced to join Isabella's men, shouting for the gangway to be lowered. The flames licking the Tevinter ship built to a spectacular crescendo. Blue-violet flame balled, billowed to red, leaped into the night like an early dawn. That light illuminated Rilian and Zevran cruelly; they showed up as perfect targets for Howe's archers. Two groups converged from either flank, ready to encircle them; there was a deep shout: "I want the Warden alive - take her!"

Rilian stopped, slashed with her blade, almost disappearing into the roiling crowd. They parried and dodged, forbidden to kill. Rilian, suffering no such restraints, did terrible damage. Zevran continued on for several yards until he realized she was no longer beside him. Suddenly she darted inland, heading for the cover of the dockside shacks she knew so well - the entire landscape was a warren, offering a thousand places to hide. She called to the now-stationary Zevran. "Get to the ship - quickly! If you delay, I won't have the chance to lose them in the dark. They need me here anyway. _Run!_"

Zevran twitched, ripped by indecision. The guards rushed towards him. Face white and set, he ran, stumbling onto the ship while eager hands helped him. He turned to see Rilian running, away from the light of the shore, into darkness, towards the town.

Isabella called for her men to raise anchor.

On deck, a dishevelled Shianni, her face masked in horror, reached Zevran. In a voice wretched with disbelief, she begged him to tell her it hadn't happened: that the person left on shore, alone among Arl Howe's men, wasn't her cousin.


	6. Chapter 6: Love Remains

_This was hard to write, mostly because Howe's head is just not a good place to be! I thought about splitting this ridiculously long chapter into two, but it was written as one chapter and I think it works better that way. Apologies if it's indigestible. I'd like to thank Arsinoe for letting me use her ideas on the balance of power between the Crown and the Arl of Denerim. I'd also like to thank Enaid Aderyn and Meiran Chang, whose excellent fics "Perspective" and "One Good Turn" inspired my version of Goldanna. _

Rilian's breathing was harsh as a rusted saw. She lurched with a strained, off-centre motion as her wounded shoulder stiffened. When Arl Howe's guards had seen her get away, the archer had fired, despite the order to avoid killing. Better dead than escaped, she supposed. Keeping her footing on the rain-slick stone taxed her to her limit. The narrow alley was littered with rubble and refuse. The energy surge of combat had long since drained away. She was soaked, chilled and exhausted. She thought enviously of Sten, who could step outside pain almost completely. Wounds were an inconvenience for her Qunari friend, except for the blood loss.

Behind were the shouts of her pursuers. Around were smells of surf, rain, garbage, leather and sweat. Ahead - somewhere within the warren of the dockside town - she caught the unmistakable scent of wet dog. It couldn't be one of the mabaris she had seen earlier - they had melted away to the south, and she was heading north. This was the poorest section of the human part of Denerim. Buildings were more regular than the crumbling hovels of her home, but squeezed together as tightly as her people in the crates. Hanging wooden shop signs rattled and banged in erratic gusts of wind. The first curve of the rising sun bloodied the rooftops, but did not reach the streets. Only a few lights broke the blackness: trailing from the windows of the men and women who worked the dawn shift. Filtered through the smoky, fish-smelling air, the meager orange glow provided colour rather than illumination, gilding the urban canyons in a surrealistic glow. This dirty, turbulent light created a lying silhouette that transformed her progress into a graceful, pain-free glide. Her shadow wavered, guttered into darkness, only to pop up again, leading and taunting.

Heart pounding, she found herself at a dead end; strained every nerve to listen for the sounds of pursuit. None came. Keeping to the wall, its stone dripping rainwater, she made her way back out. She dared to stop a moment, turned her head, struggling to get her bearings. The arrowhead seized at the move, twisting. Shock rushed to break her will. Faintly, she heard Sten: _Pain is a hunter. Run, and it'll overtake you. Turn and face it, Kadan… _Nausea rose in her throat. Her eyes still bore the imprint of the burning ship, its darting, luminous flames leaping upward. Her head whirled - horizontal and vertical alternated to the rhythm of the lights that slashed the darkness.

Men's shouts drifted towards her. A dog barked.

Gathering the last of her strength, Rilian ran. Crossing the street was leap after leap from one loose stone to another. Each jarring landing threatened to buckle her knees. The pursuit was closer - she could make out individual words.

Rilian grinned tightly. _Even if I could run away, I won't be conscious for much longer…_

Instead she focused on the ground - a decaying map of loose stone, broken roof tiles, puddles of rainwater - and the small, withered plants that clung to life. Some ten yards ahead, the iron bars of a sewer grate gleamed wetly. Rilian reached it, sank to her knees. Peering down, she saw the tunnel was a dead end - reeking sewage lay atop a mass of collapsed stone, the tentative green fingers of moss curling around. With space just large enough for one person, but nowhere to go, it was the worst kind of trap.

The voices echoed around her, closing in.

Rilian gathered herself for the effort she knew must be her last. Blood-smeared fingers curled around the bars. She pulled. For an instant, the sharpness of the pain was actually a relief from the grinding pressure. Then the arrowhead was working back and forth along the bone. Rilian moaned through gritted teeth, consciousness coming in bright, pulsing waves, ebbing and flowing. Little by little, she won. The grate came up, sending her sprawling backwards. Rilian was less concerned for the undignified position than the fact that her blood stained the walls and ground. She rose, and staggered back a few paces. With her palm, she made smears across the stone, working the blood into strange symbols. _Rilian the artist_, she thought crazily, as the paintings in Arl Eamon's study flashed across her mind. Then she retraced her steps, dangled her feet over the hole, and lowered herself in. One shaking hand reached upward, dragged the grate back into place. She choked back a scream, her body sheened with the cold sweat of agony. The oily slickness of the sewage made her gag. But it and the moss provided cover.

The guards reached the street. A young voice excitedly reported the red marks. An older, gruffer voice stopped him. "That's not blood. That's paint."

The sound of clanking steel, a sword scraping in its scabbard. A third voice: "What're you bastards waiting for?"

The first man spoke. "Look here - scuff marks. Something's been dragged across the street."

"There's scuff marks all over this damned shithole. If you're too tired to keep up, sit down and wait. We'll bring her back for you to play with."

A shadow flickered above. She saw it through a murky haze, like looking up, half-drowned, through water. A sword blade poked between the bars: gleaming, inquisitive.

"You think the knife-ear changed into a rat?"

Someone laughed. "They do run in packs, like rodents."

"It seems not to go anywhere. I don't know. Sim, give me a hand with the grate…"

A white flash ripped the sky. Barely seconds later, the deep heavy base notes of thunder followed. The rush of rain seemed to burst directly out of the dying roar.

"That's _perfect!_ Now the blood trail's washed off. If the knife-ear gets away, it's your fault, Ned!"

Heavy boots splashed off into the distance.

The rain was shockingly cold, almost blinding. It drenched her like a waterfall - splashed downwards through the muck and stone and plant-life…_how quickly would it drain away? How high would the water level rise?..._

Why did it matter? The sea bobbed beneath her, soothing. She was on a small boat - no, a ship. The same ship that carried her family to safety. Even the pain began to recede - a sensation like the pulling up of an anchor.

She curled her hands around the tiller, wondering distantly why it was so important to move the iron bars. The world she glimpsed through the chinks was distorted by the rain: a vast luminous bruise of glowing purples and blues and grays, rippling and shivering with wetness. It was as if dawn sky and ocean had changed places. She was sure she heard Leliana singing: the hauntingly beautiful Elven lament for the dead. This sky was that music. Then the deep rumble of thunder surrounded it, absorbed it, as though it were crushing the song, the listener.

In the midst of the dirge, her hand was suddenly warm. A wet nose poked through the bars; the unmistakable scent of wet dog intruded on sea and song. Rilian fought to focus on it, to clear the cobwebs from her mind.

A familiar voice - a voice Rilian had not heard for a long time - helped her. "It's me, Ril. Speak to me!"

The was a clank and scrape - the bars pulled away. The hands that moved it patted the dog's head: "Well done for finding her, Helm-Piddle." Then they reached downwards. "I'm gonna need a little help, here…"

Rilian did her best. Memory hovered at the edges of her mind. Water. Cold. When the hands dragged her from the hole and wrenched the arrowhead her own yell of shock brought her to consciousness.

The voice said: "I've got you. I'm here. You're safe."

* * *

The Arl of Denerim's estate was chill as a sea of ghosts. The storm crept through the slitted windows, making the newly installed grey-and-yellow pennants ripple like pondwater. The dining table in the Great Hall was polished mahogany, as black and cold as space. Pale candlelight reflected in its depths like stars, casting light but no warmth.

Arl Rendon Howe sat over a finely-cooked dinner, alone save for his manservant. He did not really taste the food, but he finished it anyway - for form's sake and because he was a man who liked routine. His mind was on the situation at the docks. Of course the matter was a mere inconvenience - Caladrius was not the only Tevinter who had expressed an interest in such commodities, and as for ships - he would be only too happy to provide his own fleet from Amaranthine. He would assure the Teyrn of that, when the man came blustering. One week to send the message; possibly two before they arrived…he wondered what had become of Caladrius' documents. Surely the Teyrn would not have been so foolish as to sign them…

He rather wished himself in his own Vigil's Keep, surrounded by centuries of tradition, the weight of history, the portraits of a family that stretched back to the time of Calenhad. But he had power here - most of the city was controlled by the Arl of Denerim rather than the Crown. And Teyrn Loghain knew how much gold the commodities of Amaranthine and Highever had already fetched for the war effort. If this latest accident deprived the Teyrn of some support, it would only serve to make him more dependant.

Of course, it was embarrassing that the only culprit caught had been the night guard at the gate. Howe froze, his head cocked, hearing a suggestion of the man's screams in the shrieks of the gulls outside. They blended for him with the echoes of others: Ser Gilmore, Oswyn Sighard…the Orlesian Grey Warden… Hmm. Everyone said Wardens were unbreakable. Another myth debunked. The Teyrn would be more than interested to hear what the man had to say - perhaps that would make up for Caladrius.

A dirty rumour had sprung up concerning Howe and these prisoners: base as the minds that had created it. The aristocratic lip curled. A nobleman should not flinch from necessary actions, no matter how unpleasant - should always be able to look at his deeds. He did, sometimes, suffer nightmares. Other dreams…

His mind slid away, towards the actions of this other Warden: the Elf. It bothered him that he had not seen it coming. Howe prided himself on his ability to anticipate events, which was all based on an ability to judge people. Diplomacy, after all, was why Loghain needed him. He frowned. Could it be that his arena was only his own kind? The biggest divergence from the norm had been the Teyrn: a first generation noble. It had simply never occurred to him to bother with anything lesser. But that had been a mistake: even non-humans could possess a certain low cunning. He had learned it with the Elven Warden - and with her counterpart: the little Orlesian who served the Queen. She had plotted against him!

He could not take action. Not yet. He could not reveal to the Teyrn exactly how he had come to overhear a conversation that had taken place in the Queen's bedchamber. The Elf thought herself clever: had thought that she and the other Elf could slip into the estate like rats in a larder. Too bad the dirty little beasts hadn't discovered the traps.

At that moment the double doors to the outside flew open, driven full wide by the force of the wind. They crashed suddenly against the stone wall, admitting a blast of air that bent the candle flames horizontal.

Only raw shock kept Howe frozen in his seat and prevented him embarrassing himself.

Teyrn Loghain stood in the doorway, like a force growing from the ground. His presence filled the room. His mouth was set; his thick black brows, which had always had an outward tilt, flared up from his frown like a hawk's spread wings. Force came from him like heat. Howe waited, face frozen into its well-bred mask, feeling the hidden dagger with the nerves under his skin.

"You have contributed more men and gold to this country's defense than any other. Ambitious - but also a patriot. Cunning - but vital to understanding this country's so-called nobility. But one thing I never counted on: that you could be so incompetent."

Howe rose to his feet with cat-like grace; his paled features seemed to grow flatter somehow. His frown came slowly, unusually delicate: the expression of a man noting but choosing to ignore a regrettable descent into bad taste.

"Corlio," he commanded, "Leave us." An elegant hand-gesture accompanied the order: the signal to alert the guards to watch the Teyrn's every move. Efficiency was the sum and essence of Corlio's moral code: he obeyed with a neutral expression and a quick, perfect bow.

Howe never took his eyes from the Teyrn - now striding towards him, the Orlesian armour that he wore like the pelt of a skinned leopard clanking with each step. Howe of course was unarmoured: unlike the farmer in knight's clothing, he observed the courtesies.

"You have lost us this war - can't you see it! We needed that Tevinter gold. By the time we re-establish communications it will be too late. Do you want to have to choose between supporting a puppet Grey Warden King and accepting Orlesian aid! By the Maker, you should have secured the Alienage adequately: you've let the Warden slip in and out under your very nose!"

He loomed larger in Howe's vision: the fury bulging the line of his jaw, the pale intensity on either side of his nose, the darkness like mania in his eyes.

"Your grace - allow me to offer the use of my own fleet…"

Loghain's strained ferocity rejected the possibility before Howe had even finished. "There's no time. The darkspawn could be upon us within two weeks. Our only chance is to retreat here and make the city work for us: prepare the ground as that fool Cailan should have done at Ostagar. Even so, the Blight will sweep most of the nation's infrastructure away. The Ferelden way of life will be destroyed." There was something so unbearably intense in that expression that Howe was forced to look away. He had not thought like that: of the bare numbers, their own against the darkspawn. He was a politician, an adventurer; he enjoyed risk, challenge. To advance his family, he took chances that could lead to torture, disgrace, execution. He rode the currents of politics and staked his reputation on his ability to embrace them and triumph. But though he had fought in the rebellion, he was not a soldier at heart. Memories of that time crowded his thinking: Commander Loghain's clipped decisions, like scissors snipping away alternatives, reducing the world to a series of absolutes. He remembered other faces: leaders he couldn't even name. They all behaved exactly alike. They were at a level of commitment men never achieved under normal circumstances, and they saw the world in a way no civilian could. He consciously tried to see it as Loghain did - to remove all other considerations and leave only the bare numbers: the darkspawn against the forces they had, minus Tevinter aid.

Numbers like that weren't odds. They were arithmetic.

Still, Howe was not a politician for nothing. The option of facing the Blight with those odds was not an option at all: very well, they would need to compromise.

"Very well, your Grace: we need the Wardens. Or at least: we need _this_ Warden, and the allies she brings. That does not mean we need to ally with Eamon or his puppet. If the Elf has slipped the net, then we pull her back, on a string. Find out what leverage to use - what price - and keep her under control for the duration of the Blight. Afterwards, destroy her. Our ultimate plans will be unaffected."

Howe watched the man in front of him carefully. The hard granite certainty of his expression wavered, like rock eroded by the subtle pressures of water. Some of the furious smolder was tamped down. The Teyrn preferred commanding armies through force of will, the iron conviction that he and the Fereldens he led were fighting for the same goals. But he could do this: he had found Uldred's price, and bought him; he had forced the reluctant nobles to accede to his demands. What he couldn't do was unite people the way King Maric had: by giving them a vision of something greater than themselves, by trusting them to be more than they were. He had no instinct for the times when mercy would pay dividends. Just as well - it would have made him impossible to control.

"You said: ultimate plans. Other than see this land through the Blight, I have none. What did you mean by it?"

A trickle of sweat crawled along Howe's spine. He cursed the slip. As always when under pressure, his smile became ever more gracious.

"Why - to secure Ferelden's independence, of course. Now, before we consider what tactics to use with the Elf, there's something I need you to see. I've had men working on the Orlesian Warden for two weeks now: he says he's ready to talk - but to you, personally." Howe smothered a ripple of irritation. Despite his earlier thoughts, it was clear the Warden hadn't broken entirely. He'd dropped hints and suggestions like a false trail: things to give Howe pause; nothing he could really use, or confirm. And he'd had the insolence to set conditions. Oswyn Sighard had broken within one hour: had babbled nonsense, confessed to anything and everything, done every desperate and terrible thing he could think of to make his tormentors stop. It hadn't helped the boy.

Delicately, he rang a small bell. It summoned an elderly maid he'd brought from Amaranthine, one of the few of that city's Elves who'd escaped the slavers. She had the kitchen staff clear away the table, and brought him what he asked for: an embroidered cloth, dipped in a fresh, floral perfume.

Howe nodded to his guest. "Shall we?"

The two men made their way through wide corridors, whose monotonous stone was leavened by the occasional dour wall-hanging. A slightly threadbare red carpet softened the Teyrn's armoured footsteps. The colour made Howe think, idly, of the foolish guard captain's gossip: "And the Arl's son lay dead in a river of blood that ran through the entire estate…" An exaggeration, of course - still, it had taken Howe's servants some time to remove all traces from the stone. If only he'd had time to remove the tasteless wall-hangings as well... As they headed north and then east the corridors became narrower - the stone darker as the distances between torch-brackets grew longer. The dim orange light filtered through dust, the entire area half-drowned in a heavy soup-like haze. Breathing the sluggish, stale air, Howe found himself yearning for the sinuous northeastern coastline of his home. Walking a storm-lashed beach had once been a favourite pastime. He had done his best thinking there. Mysterious sounds began to crowd in on them. By the time they reached the heavy double doors to the stairs that led downwards, the rock itself seemed to sweat an indefinable stink. The stone echoed with sub-audible rustles and whispers as though trying to warn them.

Howe ordered his men to open the doors, and the Teyrn took one of the torches in a gauntleted hand. By the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, there was no longer any doubt that the mysterious sounds came from human throats: broken moans, rising to the occasional agonized scream. The fetid air spoke of human waste and sweat and ineradicable fear. Howe carefully held the embroidered cloth to his nose. Though the Teyrn enjoyed no such protection, that long-boned, stoic face was hard and set; Howe remembered it, lit by lurid tones of blood and fire, as the man and his small group of archers waded through the disastrous mess at White River.

"I'll speak to the Orlesian alone," Loghain ordered in much the same clipped tones he'd used then, "Wait here."

Howe drew in a breath - the man was barking orders at him in his own home! His upper lip curled delicately. It was too tiny a movement to be called a sneer, but the piercing gaze chilled any mistaken notion that it was a smile.

"Very well, your grace." Howe and Loghain had already studied the Grey Warden documents found on the Orlesian's person: nothing but a list of the present order's members, and a note of the four Wardens who had defeated the previous Archdemons. All were supposed to have died in the attempt, and been entombed at Weisshaupt. He couldn't see any significance in the little history lesson. The key the Orlesian had carried had opened a cache in the city: its weapons and armour had already been sold to aid the war effort. Any other secrets the Wardens harboured had not been committed to paper. The cell guard moved aside for the Teyrn, and the door swung shut. Howe was left standing outside, one hand pressing the cloth to his nose, disliking intensely to be made so foolish. The guard met his eyes for a brief moment - then quickly looked away. Howe mentally dared the man to look again. Of course, he didn't. And to top it all off, the thickness of the door muffled the voices inside completely. He could not put his ear to it in front of his own guard, which only served to fuel his growing irritation. Howe had no way to tell the passage of time: it seemed interminably long. The cells had no minutes, no days, no seasons: they had the time of the grave.

When the Teyrn finally emerged Howe studied him carefully. His face was blank, unreadable. Nonetheless, something in his posture suggested the erosion of certainty. Certainty was what kept the Teyrn upright, sane; without it, he looked like a man who had suffered an essential defeat. When he spoke, his voice was almost calm, almost lost:

"Have the Orlesian taken to the upstairs rooms. The door is to be sealed by guards and magic. Alert Jowan."

"Yes, your grace." The failed Blood Mage was, in Howe's opinion, a bad quality tool - but after events at the Tower, mages were a rare commodity. Jowan had crawled back to them after managing to escape the Templars summoned to take him back to the Circle. Apparently, the Elven Warden had begged Arl Eamon to show mercy. Like Loghain, the old Arl did not seem to understand the judicious use of such a weapon. Eamon's loss was Howe's gain: the apostate had run back to the only berth he had, and even a bad tool could be used effectively.

Howe set men to organize it, and turned to leave with the Teyrn. As they passed one of the central chambers, an anguished cry rose from within, then faded. The scream sounded again: less like a man, more like a beast.

"Another political prisoner?"

"Indeed, your grace - what..." A dismayed, abortive movement tried and failed to hold the Teyrn back. Loghain shoved the door open - looked inside for several long moments.

"_That_ - is Bann Sighard's son! What possible threat could a sixteen-year-old pose!"

Your grace - I have arrested all those caught spreading rumours about events at Ostagar, as per the latitude you allow! That boy was consorting with other disaffected youth; he's clearly of an age to go about seeking trouble, to throw off fatherly wisdom - to seek, in a word, conspiracies, rebellion..." His own younger son had been disturbingly hard to read at sixteen - it was why he had sent him to the Free Marches, to freeze his rump off in a saddle and learn wisdom. Howe frowned a moment: he'd had little luck with his sons. Thomas' entire intellectual scope seemed confined to the space between his navel and his knees. When not grunting delights with the servant girls he was with his fellow soldiers in a tavern, talking about similar events between belches. Not a conversationalist. And the worthless bag of flesh had borne no other children since the difficult birth of their daughter...

The train of thought fragmented and scattered; he could only stare, shocked by the face that met his. Loghain's face was dark with the stress of self-restraint; rage swelled the cords of his neck. His voice was a low snarl: "Your actions were unnecessary and you have exceeded your bounds. I will have to face Bann Sighard at the Landsmeet...no. What matters," Loghain clung to what mattered with both fists, "is that one word of this to anyone and the remaining nobles will rebel. _We must be united._ The boy must die - now - and the evidence must be disposed of." Hand clenched around his sword-hilt, he muttered under his breath: "When the Blight is over, you bastard, I'm going to feed you your balls." He was so furious, so obsessed with his own thoughts, he hardly heard Howe's reply:

"Try it." Beneath the bland smile, Howe looked as eager as a shark.

Loghain ignored him - pushed forward with sword drawn. Howe put a restraining hand about his shoulder. Furious, the Teyrn whirled. "When killing becomes necessary, I'll do it myself. I will not delegate the task!"

"Your grace," Howe's voice was softly astonished, "If you kill the boy in front of the guards they will believe we are afraid - or guilty. You of all people should know we cannot afford to seed such doubts. Best let my orders take care of the problem, later and on the quiet."

The Teyrn's expression was curious - Howe did not quite understand why he looked like a man who had just been asked to sacrifice that much more of himself for the sake of his duty. Murder was sometimes necessary in this game of thrones; that did not mean one had to soil one's own hands with it. He dropped words into the continued silence:

"You of all people should understand necessity, your grace. If I was over-zealous, if I exceeded my brief, it is only because this country needs a firm hand. Else we will find ourselves at the mercy of Orlais. Compared to what we saw in the rebellion - compared to what we had to _do_ - this is unimportant. Remember the words of King Maric: we must become what we hate in order to save what we love."

That seemed to go through the man like poison, weaken some inner resolve. Howe's lips curled in a bloodless secret smile. Loghain sometimes forgot exactly how much he had confided: words that could be brought out, like hidden weapons, for the right moment. A judicious reminder of compromises already made would complete the process: "You understood that when we sent Jowan to deal with Arl Eamon; when we hired that wretched Crow to take care of the Wardens. You understood it when I dealt with the Couslands."

That brought Howe's mind, again, to his daughter. Would he have done differently if the insufferable Bryce had agreed to the match? He doubted it - there was so much more at stake - but still he thought of the Cousland boy - the younger son - with something approaching regret. It was said the boy had left several dozen soldiers wounded and dying during that doomed last stand in the castle kitchens. How could the boy have been willing to die so bravely for a family of traitors? No - he understood it. Only names such as Cousland and Howe could truly understand the importance of family. When you could trace a name back a thousand years you fought to preserve its future. Everything he had done had been for the Howe family, never for himself. He would be giving his sons a magnificent inheritance.

His scarcely knew it when he and Loghain reached the stairs up. To his surprise, Loghain's next words bore no relation to the argument.

"I know the leverage to use on the Elven Warden: she gave it to me." A faint spasm of distaste crossed his face - gone in an instant. When Howe raised an eyebrow Loghain quoted words the Elf had said during that meeting at the gates: "My family is here. My father. You have no-one here with more reason to fight. Or win." He paused, as if the next action were obvious. "Arrest all the Elves suspected of aiding her - they'll serve as hostages."

Howe's eyebrows nearly climbed his hairline. How could the Teyrn believe such a worthless loss would frighten her? Knife-ears squabbled and fought to push each other down; colluded in their own segregation. When one did escape the gutter, they would surely do anything to avoid being pulled back. He had been puzzling over what to offer an Elf who owned a suit of Dragonscale armour, slept in a castle and had the ear of the Bastard Prince. But then, he mused, both farmers and Elves were notoriously group-oriented - perhaps it was no wonder the Teyrn understood her.

"Send someone with this message: the Elves will not be harmed if the Warden gives herself up. The Warden herself will not be harmed - merely held here until the Landsmeet is over, and expected to rally her forces under my command. I am going to see my daughter now."

Howe did not understand why the Teyrn unconsciously rubbed his hands, as if trying to clean them of all traces of where he'd been.

Howe had the maid fetch a bowl of scented water, which he splashed over his own hands and face before retiring to his study. He sat at his desk, sharp chin in his hands, thinking. The Queen's guest-chamber was at the other end of the estate, far from any such brutal realities, and if it was not as luxurious as she was accustomed to, she certainly wanted for nothing. The only thing she did not have was the freedom to leave it. Well, that was her own doing: she had refused the perfectly reasonable proposition he had made to her, and had brought her father nothing but trouble. A faint ripple of unease shook him, banished in an instant. It did not matter what Anora told the Teyrn: the spoiled little vixen was known to have the tongue of a bard; he doubted Loghain would believe a word of it. Wasn't there some peasants' tale about a boy who cried wolf once too often… His mind moved to the Teyrn's plans for the Elf. How to get such a message to her? Howe had a contact among Eamon's guards, but it would be preferable if the messenger were someone she trusted. One of her own kind. Not from the Alienage – that had to stay locked tight. A perfect, simple solution came to him…

A few moments later Howe was heading toward the sturdy oaken door of the Queen's chamber. The carpet along this part of the floor was finer, a pale blue threaded with gold. The door handle was carved in intricate designs. Along one wall was a tapestry: a hunting scene featuring leaping, stylised dogs. He disliked the slobbering reality - but approved the symbol of everything Ferelden. Outside the door was a pale, slender figure, garbed in robes of pale pink with a prim high neckline. He turned the corner and stepped in front of her, blocking her way. One hand flew to her mouth, almost blocking the small cry. Her eyes were huge and dark in her white face. Knife-ears had such eerie eyes, alien and unknowable as those of animals. Green seemed to be a predominant colour, blazing like the devouring jewel eyes of cats in their half-starved faces. This one's were black and glossy and opaque as a beetle's carapace.

He said: "I didn't mean to startle you. Come to my chambers. I have a task for you." His hand closed around her arm.

The Elven face seemed to draw tight, stretched masklike over waxen features: a twisted and brittle shield that might shatter any moment.

"My...the Queen. I can't leave her - my orders..." The well-mannered Orlesian voice had withered to a mouselike squeak.

He continued to force her round. "I've arranged to have the maid from Amaranthine take over your duties. You're free until tomorrow."

The knife-ear seemed to collapse in on herself, allowing herself to be led into Howe's chamber. His hand around her arm seemed to be half-holding her up; she was reeling, drunk with fear. The strange alien smell of Elves had sharpened to a hint of something acrid beneath the floral perfume: the same pre-combat stink of soldiers facing impossible odds. She let herself be led to a chair, glancing at the door as a bird might glance through the bars of its cage. When she sat, she drew in her elbows and feet, shrinking herself to the smallest space possible.

Howe chose a chair and swept into it. His embroidered silk doublet perfectly matched the blue-greys of the storm outside. He asked after the Queen's wellbeing, steeling himself to bear her prattle for as long as he could. She assured him all was well, sounding as if she almost believed it.

"If it wouldn't offend the Teyrn," he said, "I would never insist the chamber be locked. I have complete authority within my estate, of course - but as a loyal subject, the Regent's wishes must influence my every thought. I was talking to the Queen earlier today. I think she'd like to leave me. I'm a little puzzled by her lack of gratitude for the protection I've offered."

The full lips parted slightly, as if the Elf were nerving herself to speak. He saw her as a fish, convincing herself that bait wasn't really bait. He put a finger to her jaw, forestalling her. "Of course, it is a maid's duty to defend her mistress. But I've never suggested I want anything from the Queen - except to protect her from the treachery of Arl Eamon. So I was surprised when her ladyship sent you to him - the very man who seeks to supplant her..."

The Elven face froze - the pupils grew and grew till the eyes were lost holes in the white bone-sharp gauntness of her face. She was held and pinioned: a mouse facing the jewelled stare of a snake, and Howe felt the same rush of excitement he knew on the hunt, when the prey was crippled and cornered.

"You attempted to sneak the Elven Warden into my home," he said, tapping words into her fear like coffin nails.

"No," she whispered. Babbling. Her protest was like the horror in her eyes, like the quivering of her chin. She had glided about his estate in clothes far finer than an Elf ought to have, arrogantly sure of the protection of the Queen, but now these pretensions had been stripped away. "No," she whispered again, but it wasn't the accusation she denied; it was _him_, his rightful authority.

He rose, grabbed her shoulders, forced her to her feet - pushed her so hard against the wall her body went boneless as water. The movement made the candle gutter wildly, its shadows dancing fright over her pale features. She was so vividly appalled - the horror on her face so stark - that the sight of it cost him his grip on himself. Holding her to him, he covered her mouth with his and bit right through her lower lip. The wet, metallic taste burst on his tongue, heady as wine. She had her arms between them, her hands against his chest. But she didn't struggle. If he had released her, she would have fallen. He stepped back, still gripping her shoulders. Blood oozed from her mouth as though she'd bitten into red fruit.

"Please don't do this...please..."

At that, he laughed. The sound of it wheezed and rasped like the Elf's own breathing. "You knife-ears are all the same. You think you can corrupt us with your cheap tricks: King Maric's Elven spy - that whore of a Warden and the Bastard Prince...as if I would lower myself! No: I have a different task for you. You'll go to Arl Eamon's estate and bring the Elven warden here, alone. If she refuses, a dozen Elves will die tonight - and twice as many for every day she delays. If you fail, my contact will know it. He'll drag you back here kicking and screaming. Then I'll give you to my men."

Images curled and danced through his mind like smoke, stirred indefinable dark thrills. The Cousland women stretched out in the dirt, their limbs spread-eagled and staked. The way the Captain had toyed with them first, done delicate things with hands, knives, a rough piece of wood... Then the men, demonic in the firelight - eyes gleaming, tongues darting wetly - falling on them like starving predators.

The void eyes in front of him betrayed no horror at the request - only a desperate grasping for escape, clutching the chance as a drowning man would clutch a rope. The first words out of her mouth were unintelligible.

He smiled. "How odd. I barely understood you. That Orlesian tongue used to be so glib."

When she tried again, he nodded. He started to give her the Teyrn's message - then stopped. His thin smile held the gleam of a knife. "No - just tell her that the Elves are to be executed, and let her attempt a rescue." His men would be waiting. The end result would be the same - but any slight chance the Elf had of convincing the Teyrn to trust her would be gone. And the knife-ear would not walk up to his estate of her own free will, in gleaming armour, after having embarrassed him. She would be humbled as the Orlesian had been - and Howe would get to ask her questions. His way. His nerves were jittery, his muscles tight. Sweat crawled along his skin. The images wouldn't leave him, writhing like a tangled knot of snakes.

* * *

A circle of light entered Rilian's world: a small flame, glowering and smoldering like a sulky little demon while things that were not true memories, but vivid as reality, crashed and stumbled through her mind. She was lying face-down upon a bunk as hard as her own at home - it brought a sense of familiarity, security. Being in that bed at Arl Eamon's estate was like drowning in butter. Thin sheets were coiled around her sweat-streaked body as though she had fought a fierce battle with them, and lost. She lay stretched out upon the battlefield, curled fists clenched above her head. A small fire burned in her shoulder: no longer blazing sharp but tamped down by the gentle touch of bandages and some funny-smelling herbs. Her head felt heavy and empty as a clay pot as she raised it slowly and looked blearily around. Next to the bed was a little wooden table with a squat fat candle, whose sulky but friendly orange light had woken her. Bare but immaculately clean floorboards stretched to a small window. Outside, the storm had passed: the clear sky was the purple of twilight. Stars were already out: as pure and clean and precise as some gorgeous alien map, or battlefield divisions.

"How many days?" Rilian wondered aloud. She croaked the words, her tongue as dry and heavy as an old plank of wood. She didn't expect as answer - when a man's voice came from the corridor outside, she jumped.

"Only half a day - must be that Grey Warden stamina everyone talks about!"

That voice was hauntingly familiar - an Elven voice but with the ghost of a foreign accent, a light, dry ripple of bitter experience and self-deprecating humour somehow beneath. It wasn't Zevran's accent but for a moment she thought of him: sailing to rejoin her army with her father, Shianni, Soris, and the twenty-seven they had rescued. That image had been with her throughout - a flickering hope, ebbing and flowing through tides of pain and weakness, but always there. She sat up when the man came to stand by the foot of the bed - realized belatedly that the person who had cared for her had had to remove her armour - and pulled the sheets around herself.

He had wavy russet hair, an angular long-boned face, and very dark, exotic eyes. A young man's face - he was only a few years older than she - but there were fine lines along his forehead, at the corners of his eyes and mouth, that spoke of a hard schooling. In her old life, she had sometimes wondered if his past was what made him so much more driven than the rest of their community - why he had built a shop instead of a shack - why he risked censure to trade with the shems and would stop at nothing to stand on his own two feet. She had talked to him the day of her wedding, gone into his shop and asked about his flight from Tevinter, his rescue by the Dalish, a life that had seemed to her as thrilling as the best stories. And he had confirmed a rumour that had set her and the other girls buzzing for months: that he was seeing a shem woman from the Denerim Market District. His nickname for her was "Golden" and she had thought it must be for her hair or her beauty. He spoke of a strong, capable woman, who raised five children alone, in conditions little better than their own. She could not live with him - even if the Elder permitted it, the Chantry would not - and he could not live with her without their windows being smashed by angry mobs. But he supported her as well as he could. When he had confessed that her youngest child was his it had shocked her. Elven children were rare and precious - for an Elf to bear or sire a human child with a human partner was tantamount to betrayal. The Dalish had said that even Rilian's people looked human to them: their features less delicate, their ears less gracefully pointed; though whether it was the result of shem blood far back or simply their influence, they couldn't say. Yet something in her had been caught by the romance of Alarith and Golden's story. That must be where she was now, she thought - she could hear the shouts and haggling and cries still going on in the Market outside.

"Al?" she asked him, "Alarith? How did I get here - how did you find me?"

He grinned, coming to stand beside her with a drink of water, which she downed in one greedy gulp. He bustled about, brought out an oversized - or human-sized - tunic and trousers. "Your armour's a goner, I'm afraid. I took it to Gorim - he owes me a few favours - but he won't get it fixed till tomorrow. As for how I found you, that's easy. I followed all the noise and fuss, and Helm-Piddle's nose did the rest…"

"You followed Arl Howe's men?" Rilian asked, as Alarith turned to give her privacy and she struggled into the clothing. The effort made her sweat - for an instant, the room reeled; she darted a quick glance and was relieved to see he hadn't noticed.

Alarith shook his head, the cocky charm suddenly melting to an almost sheepish manner. "Before then - I followed Shianni and Soris. I guessed what you were trying to do - I meant to help - but by the time I reached the warehouse the place was swarming with guards. I was scared to go back - get caught in any reprisals - and I couldn't go through the shems. So I headed north, meaning to hide out with Golden for a little while, till things got quiet. Helm-Piddle led me to you - that dog could sniff a rat in a garbage dump…"

"Thanks," said Rilian dryly, and grinned, even as the word "reprisals" sent a cold little chill down her spine.

As if on cue, a shrill, querulous - oddly familiar - woman's voice rose to an angry screech: "And get that filthy mutt out of my larder!"

A loud bark - scampering feet - and Helm-Piddle made a timely getaway straight round the corner and into the room. Rilian dropped down - scooped the little dog into her arms, tickling him and praising him and giving him the attention he deserved.

"Never you mind," she whispered, "I'll take you back and sneak you into Arl Eamon's larder - it's so full he'll never notice the difference!"

Helm-Piddle gave a happy bark.

A shadow fell across them - Rilian looked up - and blinked in astonishment.

"_Goldanna_?"

The hair that might have been golden as a child was now light brown – thinned and darkened by work and hunger and stress – the fine-boned face pinched, its faint lines a map of long hard days and sleepless nights. The arm - all bone and sinew - that held the toddler on her hip was stained to the elbow with the dyes and bleaches of her profession; its gentle touch a strange contrast to that iron-eyed glare. But Rilian's gaze slid past her, drawn with the inexorability of undertow to the child. Soft russet curls framed a chubby little face with an impish snub nose; Alarith's dark eyes gazed up at her, round and unblinking, solemn and intent as a young owl. Enchanted, Rilian bent closer, absorbed in making baby noises and funny faces at him. The little boy squealed delight; reached out and yanked a handful of that tempting red hair. Rilian's eyes watered – her smile all but wrapped itself around her face. She praised the quick reflexes. She thought of herself and Alistair, of the censure she had feared – those disparaging whispers about blood-traitors and flat-ears – and the realization of her own stupidity hit her square in the gut. She would die for her family – stand with them in any trouble – put them first, always. But family was community – the people she had grown up with – the memories and stories and laughter. Would she love them less, if their ears were suddenly flatter – or more, if they looked more like the Dalish? _This_ was Alarith's child: his blood, his character, his teachings and his history, as much as any Elven child would have been. In the same instant, she remembered that she and Alistair were both Grey Wardens, and knew a stab of envy and loss that nearly brought her to tears.

"Isn't he beautiful?" came the familiar sharp voice, challenging…_ooh, a Grey Warden, is it: well who am I to speak poorly of someone so high-and-mighty?_...

"He's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen." And something in Rilian's voice seemed to reach the woman; that pinched, quarrelsome face softened slightly.

"And he causes his mother nothing but trouble," she grumbled – but her heart wasn't in it.

"Thank you for this, Goldanna."

"Humph. Well – you can't stay. The Regent's put up Wanted posters with your face all over the city – left one on the outside of Arl Eamon's wall!"

"Did he now?" Rilian asked, in fierce amusement, "Then I'd best put something up over them: like copies of the slaver documents with his name on them. No – I appreciate what you've both risked for me. I'll not risk you any more. I'll head back to Arl Eamon's estate right now."

She remembered her own glib words to the Arl with a pang – pictured Alistair waking this morning to find her not returned, learning the truth from his foster father, and spending the day trapped in helpless worry. Then a deeper, darker pain intruded: what had the Teyrn been doing while she slept through the day? What had happened to her people still trapped behind those walls? Had she made a terrible mistake – brought worse punishment down on them?

"Look: I know it's easy for me to say, hiding out here – but for what it's worth, I think you did the right thing."

Rilian searched his face, her eyes haunted. "Because of me, everyone who remains in the Alienage is in danger. I should have taken care of Arl Howe first."

"If you had, that first ship would be on its way. Those fifty people. You'd never get them all back." Alarith stepped forward, the muscles of his bone-white face drawn tight; eyes suddenly full of shadows. "All the older ones – like Valendrian; your father – would have gone to the galleys, or mines. Eighteen-hour shifts, six hours rest, seven days a week. No-one lasts beyond two years. And the younger ones – the pretty boys and girls – to men like Vaughan. Beaten daily, and worse than beaten. I remember more than I want to of those years."

Rilian's throat was suddenly dry, achingly tight. She reached forward, clasped his shoulders, and smiled with a bright confidence she didn't really feel. "Maybe you're right. I'll head back to Arl Eamon's – and then I'll take care of Howe. There's still time."

"And when you see that Warden of yours, you can tell him that you owe me." Goldanna's not-so-subtle hint sent a ripple of irritation through Rilian – gone the moment she looked at the mother and child.

"I will – but I won't need to. Alistair came here looking to find his family. He'll do right by you." Seeing the woman's skepticism, Rilian wondered if any promises from a noble would have convinced _her_. Maybe not – but Alistair's actions would. That was a start. Maybe one day he'd have a sister and nephews – and Goldanna would have a brother.

Rilian hugged Alarith, and shook Goldanna's hand. The woman's palms were dry and rough, as hard as her own. She dropped a featherlight kiss on the baby's forehead. _You'll not be here when the darkspawn reach us,_ she promised them silently. _You'll be in Arl Eamon's estate - or, depending on what happens, the Palace_. The Landsmeet loomed before her like some alien mountain, the view from the other side unknown. The route was one she neither liked nor understood, but had to cross. She took Helm-Piddle's well-worn lead in her left hand, leaving her right free to grasp the sword she belted about her waist.

Outside the air was fresh and brilliant after the storm. Everything seemed impossibly sharp and clear, vibrantly alive. The stalls of those hardy businessmen still trading after hours made splashes of colour - she gave Gorim a wave. Candlelight spilled from windows, making orange smears across stone worn by the passage of thousands of feet. Voices and laughter drifted over - the barking of a dog had Helm-Piddle yapping an answer - a baby cried... They didn't seem to know the darkspawn were coming. All at once she seemed to see it from on high: those buildings shattered to rubble, the people trapped beneath, shrieking and writhing - or running like rats to escape vast shadowy wings. The sky was burnt orange - roiling with greasy smoke and the breath of corruption - the lurid glow like the rivers of lava in the Deep Roads. How many of her people - how many families like Goldanna's - could they squeeze into such dubious shelter? Not nearly enough. She had talked to Sten, Ser Perth and other soldiers - they all agreed the King's mistake at Ostagar had been to fail to use defensive ground. Instead of using Ostagar itself he had taken the field, dreaming of that big bardic battle. She had sworn not to repeat that mistake. And Denerim itself was perfect ground - its walls and forts and towers a defender's paradise. But the cost was unthinkable. Was it possible to meet the horde somewhere outside the city and lure them to ground of her own choosing? Was it possible to deploy her forces - the Dalish, the Mages, the Dwarves and the soldiers of Ferelden - in such a way as to make the ground work for them? A rush of dizziness shook her - the ground tilted oddly - she was almost sick as she realised she didn't know. As a Warden, these lives were her responsibility, and she _didn't know_! Rilian brushed damp palms on her trousers.

When she came to the wall around Eamon's estate the sight of her own Wanted poster saved her. Someone had drawn a rough artist's impression of an elf with spiky orange hair and ridiculously overlarge ears. Her name, beneath, was misspelled. A little snort of laughter bubbled up - she wondered if Alistair had seen it. Alistair... His face swam beneath the swarm of worries and fears: square, sweet and openhearted, his eyes as warm as honey. She felt his arms around her - the heat of his skin - that exuberant, boyish laughter. Then suddenly the images changed, and she was remembering more, imagining more: things she had only talked about with Shianni and the others, in giggling gaggles of girls, before what would have been her wedding night. The image of Nelaros' shy smile and green eyes pierced her, bringing the old grief and longing - but the guilt was absent. Something had changed in her - softened - with that meeting with Alarith and Goldanna, and all at once she wanted Alistair to know it; wanted to show him. She hurried past the gleaming gate, scarcely noticing the strange, speculative expression of the guard on duty, her heart pounding. She caught sight of her own reflection in a puddle, rippling as she passed. Alistair's first sight of her, she thought, and smiled wryly. The oversized tunic and trousers hung ridiculously around her gawky figure - her skin was streaked with an oily film of grime and sweat - her short hair fluffed out all around her head, as spiky as the Wanted poster. Its colour was daringly offset by a strand of green moss from the sewer. Enchantment.

Never mind. Rilian reached the courtyard, lit by torches along the approach. The light made the smooth stone gleam like a giant coin. Savoury smoke wafted from the kitchens, and Rilian was suddenly starving. She could have polished off one of Arl Eamon's banquets all by herself. Helm-Piddle yipped and ran in delighted circles, trying to chase the smell and whining when she pulled him back.

"You'll get your turn at that larder," she laughed, and ran the last few steps up to the inner doors.

A flurry of guards and servants seemed to materialise from nowhere - or maybe it was just that Rilian's cotton-wool head was having trouble keeping up. Someone called for the Arl - and Alistair.

She heard heavy feet pounding over the thick carpet. Through sudden tears, she glimpsed his shape - a large clunky man blurred by weeping. She turned towards him - towards the sun - and as its light and warmth flooded through her she found herself in Alistair's arms.

"_Rilian_. Thank the Maker! I thought I was never going to see you again..." She breathed the smell of him: sage soap and leather and - yes - cheese. Beneath were warmer, elusive scents that conjured unformed images of heaviness and muscularity. He pulled back: "Let me look at you."

She blinked her sight clear and saw him gazing hungrily at her through his own tears.

"I've been waiting for you since Arl Eamon told me the truth this morning. That Wanted poster was the only hope I had - I knew the bastards hadn't got you. When you didn't return I went into town - I couldn't bear having him watch me wait. Why didn't you tell me, Ril? I would have helped you."

The plaintive note squeezed her heart - she should have told him. He was a fellow Warden, had stood beside her and fought with her and backed her up without question, trusting her decisions. He'd had a right to know. Arl Eamon's plans made no difference - he was the same Alistair he'd always been: openhearted, vulnerable, dear. His tears made him look hardly older than a boy. His short fair hair made her think of wheat, his bright gaze and his strong-boned face were sweet as birdsong.

But then Arl Eamon stepped forward. His pale blue eyes were seeking, questioning, sharp as a pair of knives in that deceptively placid face. He put a soothing hand on Alistair's shoulder.

"She's here - that's what matters now. And she must have good news - more evidence to destroy Loghain in the Landsmeet."

Rilian swivelled slowly, light, hard eyes unblinking. "I have better news than that," she said blandly - leading - and swallowed a sneer when Arl Eamon leaned eagerly forward, taking the bait. "Oh?"

"Why, yes," said Rilian innocently, "I've managed to save fifty of my people."

"What! Oh - yes - the Elves. Well done," said the Arl, with all the enthusiasm of a dog-breeder eyeing a scrawny little mutt like Helm-Piddle.

"I certainly thought so," said Rilian with satisfaction. "Rest assured - I do have the slaver documents - with the Teyrn's name all over them. And we _could_ use them in the Landsmeet. Or," she hesitated now, a fractional break in her composure as she looked at Alistair, "we could use the ruins of Loghain's plan to force him to alliance."

Alistair's face underwent a subtle change. The bones underlying his features seemed to harden to iron; his light brown eyes seemed to catch and reflect the candlelight like polished steel. The boy was gone - and in his place stood a man she hardly knew. Oddly, Rilian thought of Nelaros - of his stories of forging steel for the Couslands of Highever - the temper of different weapons. The metal of Alistair's character had been heated fast and carelessly by the likes of Arl Eamon - polished to a shine of idealism by Duncan's teachings. Now it threatened to crack in the bitterness of his loss. Distinctly, like the sound of a breaking branch, he said: "Loghain. You want to make an alliance with Loghain? It looks like he nearly killed you."

"No, that was Howe's men," said Rilian absently. She wanted to hug him, bring back the man she had first learned to love. But he only gripped her hands and held them still, looking searchingly into her eyes as if she puzzled him. So she had to try to meet him where he was. She shook her head - not denying him but her desire for comfort - and said,

"Alistair - love - I'm trying to do what's best for my people - for this city - for Ferelden. To defeat Loghain at the Landsmeet might be necessary - but to force him to work with us is better. The soldiers of Denerim would probably follow him to the Fade. And none of us is a strategist."

Arl Eamon cleared his throat at the last - a polite little cough. Rilian saw with a stab of laughter and grief that not even Alistair acknowledged it: for all his love and loyalty to the man, he knew his limitations. But then he set his jaw, his mouth down-curved sternly, somehow managing to look both petulant and iron-willed.

"His strategies didn't help at Ostagar."

That old argument - how many times had they debated it! She had plotted their defeat, stage by stage, in obsessive detail, terrified of repeating those mistakes. It had seemed quite obvious to her that by the time they lit the beacon Duncan was already doomed. But Alistair was facing her like a wall; anything she said would simply hit and hurt him and then fall to the ground. If Loghain had not caused Duncan's death - had they? Like a swordsman who overreaches and lets go in sudden fear, Alistair changed tactic:

"He tried to kill the Arl - and us. He can't be trusted. You said it yourself."

Rilian's brain spun dizzily, drunk with hunger and accumulated fatigue, her shoulder an insistent throbbing ache. Having no strength for confrontation, she wanted nothing more than to agree soothingly and move on. But it never occurred to her not to argue; any more than she would have surrendered in the midst of a fight.

"Of course he can't be trusted. I'm not saying we trust him. I'm saying we use the loss of the Tevinter gold and the slaver documents as leverage. If need be, we can destroy him after we defeat the Blight."

There was a moment's stillness. Alistair was looking at her as though she too had changed before his eyes into someone he didn't know.

"Do you really think I could do that?" he said wonderingly, "Work with Duncan's murderer - and then kill him when I don't need him anymore?"

Rilian's mind flashed back to the Tevinter warehouse, to her words to Zevran. She and Alistair were the same, all fire and passion: they killed in anger, when their loyalties were outraged; they didn't know how to use people. Her initial shame faded quickly.

"We'll need to learn how," she said softly, "The people we defend deserve more than just two hot-blooded people fighting for what they love. If we need to be strategists to save them - work with people we hate - then that is what we must do. If you can't kill Loghain in cold blood - could you show him mercy?"

Alistair let go of her hands and spun away: a quick, almost uncontrolled movement. "Ask me for a pound of my flesh - or for all the gold in Orlais. But don't ask me that - I can't do it."

A shock of defeat ran through Rilian; her hands were suddenly cold. But where would Alistair have learned mercy? Arl Eamon had had none for Jowan. Duncan had had none for Ser Jory. She had had none for Vaughan; for Caladrius. Memories of their time together flashed before her eyes in quick succession: the decisions about Connor, the Dalish, the mages and the Anvil. They had agreed on all of them, had done the kind thing - easy decisions for people with empathy. Neither of them had ever chosen mercy when every instinct screamed for revenge. For an Alienage Elf it was almost impossible to contemplate - mercy a luxury that only the powerful could afford; a generosity based on abundance. She still remembered the hot slickness of Vaughan's blood - salty-sweet where it splashed her lips - the terrible red delight, hysterical with rage and the relief that she was not helpless anymore, that she could do this to the one who had hurt them.

"We will need to learn that too," she said, her muted voice floating between them, softer than candlelight. "Mercy is a kind of weapon - an art for leaders. You're going to be King."

"I never wanted it." Alistair turned back to her, his head bowed. She searched his face but couldn't read it. "Now I'm the one asking for understanding."

"And you have it," she said, trying to lighten the mood, "Women are better at this sort of thing." Something in his face changed, lightened. He was the Alistair she knew again: golden, bright, endearing. His lips quirked upward in a faint, self-deprecating smile. Joy rippled through her; lambent and tremulous as light on water. The tight muscles of her face began to relax, a smile breaking through.

"And anything else. You think." He, too, was joking - making peace between them the only way he knew how. Her whole body trembled with love for him: the kindness, the warmth. She reached her arms around his neck and pulled up to kiss him. His arms came around her and she melted into the support of them, blending her body to the hammering beat of his heart. He returned the kiss, tenderness building to passion. The ridiculous trousers that Arl Eamon made him wear were so thin she couldn't mistake his response.

A loud barking made her jump - the scraggly softness of Helm-Piddle's fur tickled as he pushed between them. Alistair stared at the odd-looking creature and burst out laughing.

"That's the funniest little mutt I've ever seen - he looks like the parts of several different dogs, all stitched together!"

"Aww - don't listen to the mean Warden, Helm-Piddle." Rilian scratched behind the floppy ears. "This little mutt saved my life."

"Well…" Alistair extended a dubious hand. He did not have the best history with dogs - the Chantry boys had not been allowed to keep animals, and on his first meeting with Ravenous the mabari had bitten him. But that piece of information turned his opinion of Helm-Piddle round a whole 180 degrees; he patted the dog with awkward determination, as though half-expecting to lose his fingers. Helm-Piddle was more generous than Ravenous had been. Somewhere between Rilian and Alistair's impassioned argument and their kiss, Arl Eamon had withdrawn. Grinning, Rilian said,

"Well - I think we could both use some food. Shall we go to the kitchens?" Her empty stomach rumbled loudly; Helm-Piddle gave a happy bark.

Alistair's face crumpled in remorse. "I shouldn't have made you stand here talking - you must be exhausted. Let's go."

"Mmm - food, a bath, and then…"

"I, uh, guess you'll want an early night." Alistair's face was a study in mingled hope and uncertainty.

Rilian laughed aloud at the utter failure of what he thought was subtlety. For a few moments she put him off, insisting that sleep would be better than what he obviously had in mind. She couldn't help but think that if his face got any redder she could warm her hands on it. Meeting his eyes, her amusement slowly melted into a secret, soft smile. Alistair stammered something unintelligible, and she linked an arm through his.

Later, Rilian stood, her bare feet kissing the warm slate tiles, looking down at the glistening foamy water of the most eagerly-awaited bath in history. Helm-Piddle, like Rilian, had eaten his way through most of Arl Eamon's food store, and was now curled in sleep by the kitchen fire - Nigella had promised to keep an eye out for him. Alistair lay on his bed, waiting for her, eyes half-shut as he dozed, stretched out with one sock on and one off. The picture made Rilian smile. She stretched in utter abandonment, uncaring of the twinge it set off in her shoulder, and savoured the anticipation of that bath - the delightful shock of hot, cleansing water. She stared into the small, gold-edged mirror along one wall and made a face at her haggard reflection. Alistair would look after _her_. The hollow-cheeked scamp in the mirror would have to fend for herself.

She dipped a foot into the water, wiggled it about and shivered with delight. Finally she stepped into it and sank down. She gave a soft sigh, almost a groan, as water and foam enveloped her like a soft scented cloud. She dunked her head right under, blew bubbles, squirmed about in luxurious self-indulgence. The soothing heat drained the last of her strength - her bruises ached deeper - her eyes burned hotter. For a while she half-dozed, while the heat warmed her bones and chased away the ache in her shoulder. Images of last night - of rain and fire and pursuit - and the sharp nipping bites of worry for her people flickered and whirled, turning like the vast, shadowy mill-wheel that loomed above Redcliffe.

Finally she stood again, and studied the row of small bottles along the wooden shelf. She recognized the oils that Liselle sold in the market. She tried each one in turn, in little dabs along her arm. She thought of Alistair, and picked the one that smelled of roses. She poured an amount into her callused hands - then slowly, a little hesitantly, worked it over her body. This was not the brisk, matter-of-fact way she washed down at home; this was a playful, uncertain exploration. She traced circles around scars, ridges of muscle and soft skin. There had been a gap in time, between the day of her wedding and now; she had been outside herself, out of touch. She had grown old without womanhood; gone from the gawky, coltish girl who worked at the warehouse to the tainted Warden. She went back in time and recreated herself with her hands, her touch; they became Alistair's, followed the path of memory and imagination - took on a life of their own in the semi-darkness, stoking her skin to heat and a sliding, fiery sheen. Alistair's hands - his touch - her wedding night… She rose, heat and lassitude flowing within, ready to go to him. His inexperience, and her own, didn't worry her. They would learn what they needed to know together.

The sharp knocking on the door - Nigella's voice, taut with stress - went through her like a cold knife.

"That Orlesian girl is here - from Arl Howe's estate - she says it's urgent."

The knife splintered into icicles, fracturing her, the warm languor shot through with tiny white shards of terror. When she reached Arl Eamon's study and heard the news she was shaken by a storm of fear and rage, as cold as if she'd been dipped in the ice-crusted sea.

* * *

"So - Arl Howe is going to execute twenty of my people for the murder of these so-called "healers".

"I believe Erlina's information is good. I'm sorry." Arl Eamon modulated his voice to convey the right sympathy. Eamon, Rilian and Erlina were in the Arl's office, with the plan of Howe's estate that Rilian had asked for spread out over the desk. He waited a moment for Rilian's response - then realized she was completely ignoring him. Offended by the rudeness, he stopped. Then he realized she simply hadn't heard him - her flat crystalline stare was fixed on a point in the distance, abstracted.

"Howe is a fool," she said, her voice tight in a kind of furious grief, "And what can Loghain be doing? I'd expect him to use them as hostages, to get better terms from us; make me go to him. This - is petty revenge. It makes no sense."

For a moment, Eamon saw the gloss of panic tighten on Rilian's features. He felt he was seeing her, truly seeing her, for the first time. How old was she? Barely launched on adulthood; victimized by powerful people who held all the cards. The thought sent a slimy sensation of guilt crawling through him: for going along with Erlina's story - for sending her into Howe's trap. _It's necessary. I really can't have her allying with Loghain - and if the Orlesian succeeds she'll be trusted by both the Queen and Howe. That influence will get her into Rilian's cell - once she's freed, she'll do the rest: she's a Warden, after all._ He cringed inside, knowing that Howe would probably have time to work on her first. _But she's an Elf - they're, well, more used to harsh treatment than we are. I really have no choice: twelve Banns I saw today, and only Arl Wulf will support us. Howe has too much influence - he has to be dealt with. I can't expect the Warden to understand the greater considerations…_ It was why he was not involving Alistair; curiously, the Warden also seemed content not to do so. In a moment, however, Rilian had rallied. The deep-set, exhausted eyes were hard as stone. She turned to Erlina.

"Alright - I'm going in. I told you I needed numbers and shift patterns of guards - ways in and out - I also need to know exactly who Howe has working for him."

Erlina was a mass of useful information. In addition to guards and entry routes, she knew a lot about the other "guests" in the estate.

"There's a man he had brought up from the cells - an Orlesian. I heard the guards talking: there's a rumour he's a Warden." Both Eamon and the Warden sat up and leaned forward. "They keep him in a locked room but they don't torment him anymore."

"That's - interesting: why would Howe turn him from prisoner to guest? What could the man have told him? We've got to get him out."

"It won't be easy. The door is sealed by magic. Arl Howe has a Blood Mage working for him - a man named Jowan."

Outrage swelled Eamon's breast. "The Blood Mage has escaped justice? Run back to serve my enemy once more!"

The Warden had the insolence to raise a feathery red eyebrow. "Where else could he go? It seems Howe has shown him more mercy than you or the Circle."

Arl Eamon clung to his manners - his guilt over the Warden's fate helped him keep a civil tone. "Have you forgotten the maleficar used dark magic to poison me?"

"And for that the Arlessa had him locked up and tortured: I'd say he already paid. When I reached his cell, I let him out - told him to flee. I knew he wasn't going to get justice from a noble. But he wouldn't go - said he wanted to redeem what he'd done. He was scared to death but he did it anyway: entered the Fade and fought demons to save your son. You insult Connor to think so little of it."

Really, any guilt Eamon felt was rapidly drying up. It was a fortunate coincidence that when he had to make the hard decision, the Warden managed to irritate him so much.

* * *

They went over layout and troop movements in great detail. Rilian was going in through the midden - from the small stream that ran past the Alienage she could reach the sewage duct. But when it came to the most important information of all - exactly where her people were being held - Erlina was maddeningly vague.

"How can you not know this?" Rilian struggled for calm. She won - but her nails drew blood from her palms. "Erlina - details like that mean the difference between saving my people and getting them killed!"

Erlina was a mass of nervous tics and gestures. Her slender hands shivered slightly like pale flying creatures; distorted by erratic tremors. "I...I don't know. I'm sorry." Something in her tone rang false - Rilian couldn't put a finger on it. She stared down at the desk as though she meant to bore a hole with her gaze. "It might be safer to get a message to Howe - negotiate."

The Arl sat bolt upright. "Impossible! If you offer to negotiate he'll think he can buy you..."

_...He can..._

No. It wasn't that simple. There were things she couldn't - wouldn't do. And Howe had no reason to keep his word. As long as he remained where he was he could use her people as hostages, again and again.

"What about Loghain - I told you he'll need to make terms with us now. The Landsmeet..."

"I'm afraid it's not that simple," the Arl said, in a tone of grave sympathy, "The Regent doesn't have the legal right to interfere in what goes on in the Alienage. Why do you suppose all the reforms King Maric wanted - and even Loghain's daughter, I'll give her that - came to nothing? The charter gives control of the city to the Arl of Denerim, not the Crown. The Crown only controls the Palace district, the gates, and the city's defence. Arl Howe is too powerful to take down at the Landsmeet, else I would do so."

That, at least, had the ring of truth. This may have been what Arl Eamon had wanted all along, but Rilian had the strangest feeling that he wasn't happy about it.

_...No choice, then..._

She fired questions at Erlina as rapidly as Leliana fired arrows, scissoring away alternatives with cold-blooded precision. Erlina floundered. Like a predator, Rilian pursued. Then she actually _looked_ at the woman for the first time. There was something in Erlina's pinched, pale features that dashed her frustration. Birdlike, she appeared poised for flight. Her eyes were dark smudges - her heavy make-up failed to disguise the bruises round her mouth.

Stricken with remorse, Rilian said: "I'm sorry. You've risked a lot to help us - and I haven't even thanked you."

Erlina raised a startled hand - touched her face nervously. "You have a lot to worry about."

"That's no excuse for bad manners. Would you like something to drink - tea? Or would that hurt? Maybe water would be better. I'll get it."

Erlina jumped up - followed after her so eagerly it seemed as though she didn't want to be left alone with Arl Eamon. When the two women headed down the corridor Rilian asked softly, "Was it the guards who hurt you?"

"I...no, it was Howe. He grabbed me - said things..."

"I can imagine." She could hear the iron in her own voice. When she closed her eyes it was as if she could see all of them together: Shianni and Valora and the others, beaten and raped and tormented and killed. "It'll be alright." It was more promise than reassurance; it would be alright some day, she would make it that way.

Erlina sobbed, just once, but refused to break completely. She turned away. The movement exposed her profile, and Rilian realised she'd unwittingly discovered the most telling facet of Erlina's appearance. She found herself thinking of a bird, fluttering a false broken wing. Beneath the graceful manners was sadness. Under that was toughness. Rilian wished she had a more elegant word, because it was a beautiful thing to see. The nervous behaviour hid a steel core.

"It must have been harder for you. The things you told me: your cousin, your husband. But you survived." There was a tiny hitch in the words, an inflection. Rilian found herself thinking of the swift-winged seabirds that swirled about the coast. Their quick appearance and disappearance gave them an almost sinister grace, a capacity to make the mind distrust the eye.

Thoughtfully, she said, "What makes suffering important isn't survival - it's the use we make of it. My husband worked the forge. He said fire and hammer alone can't make good steel: it's up to the smith. We Elves must make better steel of ourselves than the shems. Or break." Rilian fumbled, took Erlina's cold hand in her own, feeling almost as if some current were passing between them. She smiled at her, a little self-consciously. "Or maybe I'm just a dreamer. Come on, let's go back."

She had gone only a few steps when Erlina called, "Rilian - " Rilian turned. Erlina had gone white, and was shaking.

"What's wrong?"

"I...I can't..."

"Can't what?"

"I can't lie to you!"

Rilian patted the smaller woman's shoulder. Erlina only came up to her chin. "What's this, now?" she said, trying for the tone that Shianni had always used to get the truth out of _her_.

"He sent me," Erlina said, so softly Rilian hardly heard her. "Howe sent me."

"Why - to get me to come? To walk into a trap?" Rilian bit her lip, fighting the rage that spurted up. She looked away, afraid Erlina would think it was directed at her.

"Yes." She heard fright as well as misery in Erlina's voice. "And that's not all. Teyrn Loghain is there. Myrtle - an Elf from Amaranthine - told me he was very angry with Arl Howe for what happened in the Alienage. Loghain is using the Elves as hostages - to make you go to him, ally with him on his terms - to get you away from Arl Eamon and Alistair at the Landsmeet. Arl Howe twisted the truth - to make you think you had a chance to rescue them. He wants you to try, you understand. The guards will be waiting - and Howe will give you to them. If he learns I spoke to you of this, you finish me."

"I couldn't!" Rilian put an arm around her. The smaller woman's expression didn't alter. Still, there was an almost imperceptible lean into the contact. "Never. But why go along with Howe ? Why not just go to Arl Eamon - we would have protected you."

"I tried. I told Arl Eamon the truth. He said - "

They were almost back at the study now. Rilian said, "Wait here" and poked her head through the door. "I'm going to get armed and armoured," she told the Arl. She turned back to Erlina and winked. "You'll come with me. Ladies always have to have company to go to the powder room." Rilian had no idea why she felt so oddly cheerful. After all, the situation had become worse instead of better - a lot more complicated. All tiredness had fled - her brain spun dizzily, beyond rest.

Quietly, Rilian and Erlina headed outside, stepping into Arl Eamon's private garden on the estate's north side. Surrounded by high stone walls and shaded by trees, the ornate seclusion was curiously grim. The stars overhead were pure and cold.

"So," Rilian said quietly, "The Teyrn wants to ally with me - but on his terms. He doesn't know how to make real allies - he can only keep them on a leash. That doesn't surprise me. But he must intend to honour the agreement, else why would Arl Howe go to the trouble of lying. Howe is angry I embarrassed him. Does he also fear an alliance? And what about Arl Eamon? I know he's against it too - but I can't believe he'd let me walk into a trap! Aside from anything else, there would be easier ways to get rid of me."

Softly, Erlina said, "I have known Arl Eamon a long time. Five years ago, Empress Celene gave me to King Cailan as a wedding present." Self-mockery steamed in the words. "Elves aren't property here - not so in Orlais. I was to serve Queen Anora and report back to the Empress' court. King Cailan had other requirements. They say the tastes of all the Theirin men run to Elves."

In between the shock of Erlina's revelation and the sting of her last words, Rilian remained silent.

"Arl Eamon was always writing to his nephew, saying the King should put away his barren wife and ally with Orlais. The Empress wanted that too. But Cailan loved Anora, even though he could never keep his hands to himself."

Rilian remembered the golden young King; that gleam in his eye. He'd certainly been full of himself - perhaps he thought it ungenerous to deprive other women of his charms. And Queen Anora - the ruler she was prepared to depose. She didn't want to know this - didn't want that blade of empathy in her heart. _Barren - surrounded by the sneers and scheming of men like Eamon._

"I heard - just before Ostagar - that the King was going to consider it. I hoped for a high position at court. But then the Regent murdered the chevaliers at Gherlen's Pass. We lost all contact with Orlais. Since then, my life is lies. And threats. I use them all: the Queen, Arl Howe, Arl Eamon. One protects against another. I never wanted to go back. I thought Arl Eamon might shelter me - I hoped he'd just be pleased you found the slaver documents and ruined the Teyrn's plan. But he said most of the nobles are still voting for the Teyrn - and Arl Howe is too powerful. He doesn't want you dead - he thinks you'll be able to escape, with my help, and kill him."

Through the storm of rage, Rilian was conscious of one overriding thought: that Arl Eamon had a rather optimistic view of her chances. _Escape, fight my way through Howe and Loghain and dozens of guards? _No doubt it looked easier from where the armchair strategist was sitting. Perhaps he commanded armies from the same perspective. It didn't bode well.

As for the political machinations, they hardly seemed important. She felt anger shrivel to a small, hard nugget of disgust. What mattered was that Alistair deserved better than to be used by a manipulative old man. What did she care for political boundaries, for whether Arl Eamon was a traitor or Loghain a patriot? Orlais made slaves of Elves and Loghain sold them: where, exactly, was the difference? She found herself thinking of what Nelaros had said about his flight from Highever with cousin Iona - the fall of Castle Cousland. The Couslands were supposed to have been traitors, Orlesian sympathisers. Whether or not that was true, what mattered to her was that Channon Cousland had ordered the servants and retainers to flee to safety, while he stayed behind. That was the kind of Lord she would have followed. Or Alistair - who may not have understood mercy but whose fierce compassion shone like sun in a desert.

"I have to support whichever side will let me feed my family, you know," Erlina said wistfully, "I send money back to my parents, my little brother and sister, in the Alienage in Val Royeaux - more than I could ever make here."

"I understand. I'd do exactly the same. We might end up on opposite sides - but right now we're sisters, and we'll face this trouble together. What are their names?"

"Lian and Perlia. They're thirteen and ten. It's a shame, though - I mean, Queen Anora's been kinder to me than any other noble." A sudden thought struck her and a tremulous smile quirked her bruised lips - the first smile Rilian had seen her make. "She always talking about a "university" she's going to build one day - a place where everyone, noble or commoner, can get an education."

Some bright image stung Rilian's mind - memories of lessons with Mother Boann, the wonderful smell of new parchment, thoughts and insights flying to meet her like birds. Because it was Loghain's daughter - Alistair's rival - she snorted dubiously. "She probably means every human."

"Oh, I don't think so. Anyway - I've seen her plans for the building. She'd like to use Arl Howe's estate."

In the midst of a desperate situation, an impossible choice, Rilian burst into delighted laughter. The image was just too good.

Humour collapsed to aching sadness. Alistair would never have thought of a university - but he would notice things no-one else would. Given the choice between providing education for the whole city and helping a man like old Timon get through another day, he'd choose to help Timon. Maybe that was emotional and short-sighted. But it was also wonderful.

It was a pity, she thought whimsically, that you couldn't combine the two in one ruler. Then her mind jerked as though it had hit a wall.

She'd thought herself resigned to the price of Alistair's kingship: whether Empress Celene or Queen Anora or any other noblewoman, there would be someone. She'd made the loss bearable with dreams of the King he'd be - the fairness and justice he'd bring. For a moment, rationalisations were blotted out in a searing flash of jealousy.

She struggled to master it. Whatever happened, Alistair must be his own person - not Arl Eamon's puppet; not hers. She trusted him to be a good King - a good Warden - just as she trusted him to do right by Goldanna. _If it means I lose him, I'll take it as bravely as I can..._

All that crumbled to insignificance in the face of the stark choice. Erlina's voice was a soft echo of her thoughts, almost floating in the night air.

"Arl Eamon's plan has no chance - and if you accede to Loghain's demands, you'll be leaving Alistair to face the Landsmeet alone. Even if the Teyrn carries out his threat, how many can he kill? Wait him out - show strength - and we can win."

Rilian's fists balled up. The numbers didn't matter - she saw them all. Elva and Siela and Valendrian...Cousin Iona and little Amethyne. She couldn't abandon them, not even for Alistair. She pictured him facing the Banns alone: clumsy, nervous, crippled by worry. She had a sudden sinking feeling, as if a hole had opened in her chest and let her heart fall out on the ground. But Alistair was King Maric's son: they would recognize his face, his golden charm - would respond to his own, so much stronger than he knew. If this was not his wish, it was still his choice - and he had a fighting chance. Her people had no choice - no chance to defend themselves. If she failed them, their faces would haunt her all her days.

"I have to go."

"Warden - Rilian - this is no time for idealism."

"I'm not an idealist. I don't fight for a nation - the honour of the Wardens. I fight for real people: my family and Alistair's, my men. If anyone's an idealist it's Loghain. He's the one who fights for Ferelden - and sacrifices its people and even its freedoms to do so."

Rilian stopped, scared by an idea too elusive to put into words. Were her chances fatally compromised by her inability to sacrifice individuals for the sake of something larger? Was she destined to lose this confrontation because she couldn't match Loghain's ruthlessness?

She remembered other idealists – people who reminded her of Loghain in some ways – people who had sacrificed everything, even their own kin, for what they believed in. Zathrien, Branka… Each had lost the ones they loved, and ended up clinging to the ideal because it was all they had left. Where would she be without the people who centred her, held her in place? She flinched from the thought: the madness, the driven intensity that seethed behind it.

Perversely, the thoughts left her more optimistic about what lay ahead. "Don't be afraid, Erlina. Loghain may think he has the upper hand, but he could find the trap turned inside out. There are many strands to this – many people in that estate – many cards to play. Queen Anora – the Orlesian Warden – even Jowan. There's Howe and Loghain at each other's throats. It's too dangerous for you to come with me – but I'll get a message to you any way I can: Alistair's position could be stronger than before. When the Blight hits, all walls, all boundaries, all bets are off. My people will be with me – these so-called nobles won't have the protection of their estates. There'll just be my men, and his. We'll see who sinks and who swims."

There was another reason: the flickering images of crumbling buildings, a sky like lava; vivid as memory, though it hadn't happened yet. Teyrn Loghain was the only person who could answer her question – help her unwrite that future.

Wraith-silent, the two women slipped inside the estate. Rilian padded down the hallway, passed Arl Eamon's study but did not go in. What was there to say? She crept to her room, sat down at its desk, and wrote a message for Alistair with a shaking hand. When she explained how Erlina had helped her, asked him to look after her, a loathsome worm twisted in her mind. Wasn't this what the woman had wanted? Erlina – King Cailan – Empress Celene; wasn't the triangle going to repeat, with Alistair the only different player?

What difference did it make? Erlina hadn't lied about Loghain – it was something the man would do. _She_ was the one betraying Alistair, abandoning him when he needed her most. He would not forgive her this alliance. She slipped into his room, unable to take her eyes from the slow rise and fall of the broad chest, the flicker under the eyelids in the peaceful, dreaming face. She didn't touch him – if she did she would never be able to leave – just put the letter quietly down by the side of the bed.

Shortly afterward, she left, armed and armoured, smiling grimly as she thought of how Arl Howe had wanted her to arrive, how happy she was to disappoint him. The scales of the High Dragon fitted her like a second skin, brilliant and glittering as the iridescence of oil on water. Some of the legends that had grown up around her were as far-fetched as anything the cultists of Haven had come up with; the reality equally prosaic. On her left hip was a curved Dalish blade – of course, she would be disarmed as soon as she got there, but she would go in as a warrior. On her other hip, Adaia's dagger was curiously warm; she felt her mother's touch on her skin. Overhead, a crescent moon slit the darkness to create a mass of silvery clouds. Rilian walked onwards, steadily, towards the darkening bulk of Arl Howe's estate.


	7. Chapter 7: Amber and Iron

The rearing black bulk of Howe's estate loomed before her. Lights from the torch brackets that lined the walls flickered in her vision. The sounds of street vendors - barking dogs - the murmur of voices, were muffled and distant. Dread coated the air like a shroud. Rilian concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, avoiding the rippling black puddles that dotted the road like bloodstains. Her armour had cooled and hardened around her body like a prison. The frozen chill made the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She didn't look back, and her mind had gone curiously blank. The images of kidnap, shame and terror that had swirled like an ice-storm had faded, bled into the night until all that was left was willpower. It carried her onward like a ghost.

The high steel gate gleamed like a series of dagger points. Two guards stood on either side. Helms hid their faces: they appeared as no more than suits of armour, empty as the guardians summoned by Connor. She walked towards them very slowly, palms up.

"What the...wait!" Recognition sharpened one of the shem faces: the broad, grizzled features tightened in surprise...

_..."I don't envy you your fate, but I applaud your courage"... There was an odd note in the human Captain's voice - almost of regret. She had given herself up, and knew there would be nothing so quaint as a trial. All that was left was the process of dying..._

"Captain Arvall!" she blurted out, with irrational relief. The guards had become people again: brutal, greedy, violent - but not faceless monsters.

"The more things change..." the Captain said wearily, with that same odd note, "Well, Ril - Warden, you know the consequences of your actions. Tobias!" he called, and a third guard came running, "Report to the Arl that..."

Rilian froze; her muscles turned to water. Erlina had told her the Teyrn was here - but these were Arl Howe's men. They followed his orders.

The pleas, the words that screamed in her mind, shamed her, even though she managed somehow to stop them at her throat. She said nothing - straightened and looked at Arvall with icy, bleak pride.

"Wait!" The startled young guard turned at the Captain's shout. "I believe the Regent has authority here. Report directly to him."

"But, sir..."

"Do it." Arvall's voice cracked like a whip. Rilian could only stare, awed by the kindness. She knew what he risked - what the man would suffer once Arl Howe found out what he'd done.

"Thank you, ser..."

"For what, exactly?" Arvall's face was an impassive mask, "I am doing my job."

"Of course, ser."

She let him continue to do his job, handing over the Dalish sword and Adaia's dagger without question. The Dragonscale armour afforded few places to conceal weapons; his search was brisk and professional. He made her give up the dagger concealed in one of Adaia's boots. Then they walked, with her a few paces in front, through the courtyard toward the inner doors. He did not draw his own blade, use it to prod her along. He knew there was no need.

The heavy wooden doors were embossed with the forms of stylised dogs. In the pearly moonlight, they gleamed an iridescent black, lustrous as oil. They creaked open, and as Rilian walked inside she had the sense of being swallowed...

_...The stone floor was dank and chill against the side of her face; an odd coppery taste filled her mouth. For a moment, she did not know where she ended and the darkness began. "I think she's coming round..." A bright flash of green-and-pink waved in front of her. Memories of green choked her thinking: a pair of green eyes, the leaves of the Vhenadahl, the beads on her wedding dress. The colours resolved into a sleeve and hand - soft yet strong: Shianni's. "Cousin - are you all right?"..._

The orange flare of a torch lit the darkness. The tunnel opened into vast space: a stone hall, whose rich red carpet smelled of oil and perfume and dust. _A river of blood... _The thick smell dazed her. Two guards lounged, smirking. Stony, calculating eyes ranged her body. It stirred indefinable dark things in hidden corners of her mind. For one cold moment, she allowed herself to think how very alone she was. Her pulse raced.

Shianni's face swam before her, a shadowy image against the smudged cloud of smoke rising from the fire grate. She stared back. One locked gazes with her. His neck swelled and turned red, but it was he who looked away. The smirk twisted and wrinkled like Blighted leaves. She saw the worried twitch of humiliated eyes searching the other face, wondering if the failure had been seen.

Then suddenly, the inner doors were flung open, and an armoured man strode in. The candlelight sparkled off the Orlesian plate in a thousand tiny points, reflecting the colours around so that the figure seemed ablaze in darkly-glimmering jewels. Beneath the febrile glitter she sensed an inchoate darkness, a heaviness, as if the man were bottling up something larger than himself. It seemed to draw the air towards him, sucking it out of the atmosphere, forming a dark island amid the faceless guards. He strode forward with the peculiarly solid grace of a fighting man, continually poised to deliver a fully-leveraged blow.

Unlike the guards, he was bare-headed. The winter-blue eyes were keen and sharp, as though he had spent years honing them like a pair of knives. Stern, shadowed, sparked with internal fires, they were angry magnets. They blazed out of a craggy, hard, predatory face.

Rilian knew a kind of shock, a sense that she should have been more prepared. She had met Teyrn Loghain at Ostagar and at the Palace gates, but had half-forgotten that intense presence of purpose. Unconsciously, she straightened up; matched his stare. Something about him evoked a response that was half a desire to follow him, and half challenge.

It was the Teyrn who spoke first, voice taut with controlled fury. "How like one of you," he sneered. "Because of you, hundreds of men will die who might have lived - yet when faced with the choice, your first thought is to protect your own kind."

There was a moment's stillness. Then Rilian stepped forward, light as the lion running up for its spring. She was standing straight: her eyes had gone golden, her face pale, her voice cutting.

"How dare you accuse me of your own failings! At Ostagar you turned the chevaliers away to save yours! Your feared their slavery more than the Blight, and as a result a thousand men lie rotting in the field. And the women...worse than that."

She saw the possibility go through Loghain like slow ice. For a fraction of a heartbeat, those hawk-like features collapsed in loss. For a moment, he looked utterly desolate. Like a predator scenting blood, Rilian pursued. "You chose death over slavery for your own kind - yet when we choose the same, you cry foul. Try the knife's edge on your own cheek before you shave another. Ser."

Loghain recovered himself. He was a soldier first and foremost - he would not waste time dissecting his actions or the Warden's. "Let us dispense with the pleasantries," he grated out, "You're trying my patience, Elf."

"Which was never your best feature anyway," she retorted.

For a moment he gazed at her in silence, perhaps in surprise, while she bit her lip over her unpremeditated goading. Then his smile warned her. But of course the warning came too late. "No," he said almost mildly, "It was never my best feature." His eyes held the gleam of a knife.

He made a gesture, and at once Captain Arvall stepped forward and began to remove her armour. Rilian's belly clenched; her tongue felt suddenly too large for her mouth. She didn't resist - resisting would only succeed in robbing her of the last of her dignity. It took several breathless seconds before she realised that not only was the Captain doing his job with brisk professionalism, but that Loghian too looked utterly disinterested. This was not what Arl Howe had intended, not at all. In a moment she stood, unarmed and unarmoured, in the griffin tunic and black trousers she had worn underneath. Oddly, she found she did not feel more vulnerable. Sheer pragmatism told her the Dragonscale would make no difference to her fate. In her exhausted state, the lightness was a relief.

The Teyrn was in armour, even at this hour. Did the iron exoskeleton hold flesh and bone and soul together? She remembered Caridin, placing shivering naked warriors in iron shells, then pouring molten metal over them till only the iron remained.

Suddenly, like a doe sensing a hunter, Rilian stiffened, head up, alert. A movement beyond the open door, at the edge of her vision, drew her attention. Arl Howe glided down the hallway and into the room. The exposed blue lining of his cloak gleamed jewel-bright in the fireglow. He stopped. Standing behind Loghain, he turned slowly, deliberately, and looked right into Rilian's eyes. Beside her, Rilian smelled the sharpening of the Captain's sweat; he shifted nervously. Shadows moved to shroud the Arl; he stood in their embrace. From a face transformed to pale, shaded malevolence, his reptilian gaze continued to burn across the room. Rilian smiled mockingly into that arrogance.

She sensed his start of shock, that silken-covered rage. She refused to look away, feeling all her triumph, all her contempt, ooze onto her face. Her lithe muscles drew smooth, like steel bending; she felt the terrible fear and blood-red exaltation of battle. This was irreversible confrontation, beyond alliance. Her lip curled delicately in a tiny, knowing sneer... _Ah, but there is no peace in the world of nobility. You murder and torture innocents and you take what you get. Sometimes you get stared at... _As the seconds ticked by, she _owned_ him.

Then suddenly Teyrn Loghain had her wounded shoulder in a grip that made her gasp, was turning her forcibly toward the door. The movement broke the eye contact - by the time she and Loghain entered the corridor, Arl Howe was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

Loghain kept his hand on the Warden's shoulder, steered her unceremoniously down winding corridors. These were mostly deserted - a few servants darted curious eyes. He knew the gossip would be all over the estate by morning. It was exactly the same at the Palace: the low, constant thrum of sly whispers - no wonder he sometimes yearned for the forests of Gwaren. Its people were hardy - ruthless as Loghain himself when threatened - but they killed while looking their opponent in the eye.

The Warden looked no more or less impressive in armour than without: which wasn't saying much. Whip-thin, muscular, so well-co-ordinated she seemed to glide like a cat: a thing of spring steel and the bounce one only associated with youth. In truth, he had grown insufferably tired of her: that childish arrogance, the posturing. The petty triumph on her face when staring at Arl Howe - so pleased to have embarrassed a loyal Ferelden soldier - was a case in point. The red armour set his teeth on edge - not only would it have fed ten soldiers for ten weeks, it was so ostentatious it was bound to be a show-piece. He thought of Cailan: that ridiculous golden armour with the sky-high shoulder-guards - how he had strutted at Ostagar like a something out of a story. Brightness and grace and childish dreams swept away in a few shattering moments of pain and terror. He had not seen the King fall, but his imagination echoed with the screams. So young, so unready...

Loghain brought himself back to reality with a start, irritated with himself for falling into reminiscence like an old man. The Warden was brave, he would give her that. And quick-witted - her arguments here and at the Palace gates proved that the stories of her diplomatic successes were not lies. But he could scent a glory-hunter a mile off. He supposed he couldn't blame her. Born in the gutter - kidnapped and brutalised by Bann Vaughan (that insolent pup, worst of a bad litter - Loghain had heard him in taverns boasting of his Elven "conquests") - then handed power on a plate. That fine-boned face held a look he'd only seen on Elves: a kind of hunger. The Night Elves he had once commanded had had the same look: a fierce, feral drive for the power the world denied them. He'd respected them, fought with them - but he'd always known that what they wanted might have nothing to do with what the rest of them fought for. He had seen the other side of that ambition. Katriel had taught him a lesson he'd never forget.

He stopped outside his own guest-chamber and pushed open the door. If the young female prisoner felt nervous about being brought to his bedroom, that was not his problem. He had no time to pander to delicate sensibilities - the room was the one place where he could discuss things with no-one to overhear. He could have chosen the dungeon - that had been Arl Howe's suggestion - but he was far too practical to damage a person he needed. He needed her armies, not her secrets.

In fact, he had a better way to loosen her tongue. When the Elf looked around the room he startled her by going to the mahogany cabinet (Arl Urien's overdone furniture) and fetching a pitcher of red wine. He poured the dark, sparkling liquid into two glasses, and gestured for her to sit. The Warden did so, drawing one booted foot up to the edge of the antique chair in a louche casualness that could only come from youth and bad manners. He noted that she did not wrap an arm around the bent leg as most people would. She had left room to defend herself if the need arose.

The room was a surprisingly comfortable place. Warm yellow candlelight gleamed upon the silk and velvet of the large, plush chairs and seemed to give life to the patterns and pictures woven into the fine rugs. The only additions of Loghain's were the maps covering the desk and walls. The Warden was staring at them, that angular catlike face half-lit, half-shadowed. Before Loghain could speak, the Elf beat him to it, giving every appearance of thinking herself the one in charge.

"I think it's time we got to the point here: what do you want from me? If all you wanted was to keep me out of the Landsmeet I wouldn't be here. I don't imagine it's for my body or my company or even my information: you have some plan in mind."

_To defeat the Blight. To keep Eamon from putting a puppet on the throne. And - if need be - to send you to die against the Archdemon._

_To sit in the Palace war-room and find no empty chairs at the table. To lose nothing else. To hold __the borders that I've spent my life defending. To end this war..._

Because he couldn't say any of that, Loghain did something unusual for him and played for time. "You tell me, Elf - what do you want?"

"What _I_ want?" The Warden looked thoroughly startled. "What an odd question!" She went very still, every thought turned inward - then rose to her feet in a sudden quick movement and paced.

"I want to protect my people. I want to see Alistair become a great King or a great Warden. I want an answer to my question: is it possible to save Denerim? Could we stop the horde before it reaches the Capital? Could we kill the Archdemon before it rises from the Dead Trenches?" Her eyes - eyes that could look as flat and metallic as gold coins - were bright and full and oddly vulnerable. "I don't trust you. I know you'll be Alistair's enemy for as long as you live. But if you can help me make that happen I will work with you, I swear it."

Loghain rose too, face dark in a wash of bitterness. "It might have been possible if you hadn't opposed me at every turn! If that fool Eamon were not calling for a Landsmeet in the middle of a Blight! He's pulled the entire Bannorn away from the country's defence and forced us to wait here while we settle things. Because your army is camped to the west, I can't even send scouts to monitor the horde. And because you stopped the trade with Tevinter, the coffers are empty. Although," he added, bearing down on the words in a kind of furious disgust, "The sale of that expensive Dragonscale armour will feed a few."

"I have no objection," the Warden said coolly, "Provided you do the same with your own. That Orlesian plate is just as much the skin of a dead enemy and nearly as expensive. So we can both feed the troops - and go into battle in good solid _Ferelden _armour. As for the Landsmeet - surely it's possible to talk the Banns into postponing it?"

"Do you think I haven't tried? Or do you have someone else in mind - you, I suppose?"

"I was thinking of the Queen."

Loghain was silent, pessimism and distrust warring with a sudden mad hope, painful as shards of glass in his clutching hand. He had grown so used to his daughter's objections to his every necessary measure he had almost forgotten her strengths. An iron hand in a velvet glove, wrapping the Bannorn around her little finger with her silver tongue and razor-edged determination. He didn't trust these two - Howe had hinted there was some plot between his daughter and the Warden - but between them it might work.

"With that in mind, is it possible?"

"I need information. These allies you have: numbers and distance from the Capital."

"The twenty mages from the Circle Tower left two weeks ago..."

"_Twenty_ mages?! Those are all that's left - and you expect them to make a difference!" Disbelieving rage thickened his mind.

"Along with four units of Templars. Knight-Commander Greagoir agrees with me it's better than guarding an empty Tower. They march with the mages."

_Mages and Templars, working together..._

"The Dalish clan Mahariel can field fifty archers: they promised to gather the hunters of ten more tribes. And the Dwarves: five cohorts of regular infantry plus one unit of the Legion."

Memories choked his thinking. Another time, another Elf... _Centuries of rock and oily, dust-scented shadows pressed in on him. The steamy reek of a hundred unwashed soldiers rose in a wave. Firelight flickered on tattooed faces, their beards split by fierce smiles. The Legion's commander, Nalthur, bellowed with laughter. "And it's true - that sky of yours is more frightening than an entire horde of darkspawn!" A small delicate Elf touched the Dwarf's arm, one strand of pale blonde hair trailing on his shoulder. She smiled sweetly at him. "...So there is, in fact, honour to be found on the surface..."_

Pretending ignorance, he looked at the Warden curiously. "How does the Legion fight?"

"Like demons. They're already dead, you see - dead to redeem their names. Orzammar holds a funeral service for them. They don't like pain any more than the rest of us, but they don't fear dying...But you know this! Kardol mentioned the Legion fought in the time of the rebellion - and it's in the Shaperate's Memories." Her voice grew soft, wistful, almost reverent. "So many books, so much history. Libraries of many lifetimes..."

Loghain said nothing to confirm or deny it - merely strode purposefully toward the bedside desk and brought out what looked like a long leather tube. It unrolled over the table to become the finest map he had: a map of Ferelden that showed not only land forms and cities, but trade routes, defensive positions, secret trails. The Warden's eyes devoured it. Curiously - utterly incongruously - a faint memory brushed his mind, lightly as the wings of a moth: firelight, smoke, the smells of tent leather. The long evenings with his father over maps such as this, arguing over the significance of landforms, alliances, campaigns, defenses. His ears rang with Gareth's stories of what he'd learned as a Sergeant-at-Arms. At the time he couldn't see the importance - they were a band of starving outlaws, not a military unit. Years later, sitting in Arl Rendorn's tent over talk of strategy, he had wondered how much he'd learned - and how much more his disinterest had cost him.

The Warden's eyes were alight with exhilaration - she traced one slender finger over the coastline. A dark suspicion edged in Loghain's mind.

"Elf," he said seriously, "You style yourself commander of an army. Please tell me this isn't the first time you've seen a map of Ferelden."

The Warden refused to confirm or deny it. Instead, she said thoughtfully, "Now that I see these political boundaries, I understand why Ferelden nobility is like it is."

"Oh?"

"They're land-starved. Each Bann coverts his neighbour's, and knows his neighbour coverts his. Have you ever seen two dogs by the fence where one of them lives, running up and down barking?"

Loghain startled himself with a bark of laughter. It trailed off into sour silence. "But when dogs come to a gap, they don't rush through and fight - they just look surprised and walk off. Sometimes dogs have more sense than men."

The Warden's red hair seemed to crackle with exuberance; the amber eyes were bright as stars. She dropped down onto the chair and rested her sharp chin in her hands, staring at the map as though she meant to dissect it, peel away the political layers to get to the bottom line: how to use the land against the darkspawn. Loghain found himself remembering his poaching days, laying still and silent, squinting into dark-shrouded forests. He remembered staring into a thicket, and one chance movement revealing the hidden creature. He bent forward over the map, piecing together the rest of the beast. The Warden sketched his suggestions as he spoke. Her hands darted across the map, a contradictory flow of feminine grace and sinister suggestion as he described his vision of the battle to come.

"We intercept the horde - hit them before they hit us. With Orzammar and the Tower in the northwest and the Dalish and Redcliffe forces from the south, we can be anywhere ahead of them, on their flanks. We choose the time and rely on trickery, give ground to create the battlefield we must have. Attrition, Elf. We cripple their strength; disrupt and defeat them in pieces. We may be crushed, even so. If we meet them head-on, we must be crushed."

The feathery red brows were narrowed, intent. "I've seen the horde in the Dead Trenches," she said quietly, "Imagine facing a number five times, ten times what we fought at Ostagar."

It wouldn't have surprised Loghain to see apprehension in the Warden, or anger at what she no doubt saw as his betrayal. What he saw, however, was a deep pain. The young face was suddenly frozen, mask-like, drawn into planes and angles that spoke of years lived in months. He had learned more from the Orlesian about what it took to kill an Archdemon than he'd ever considered - but it occurred to him that the Warden might yet know more. The Orlesian possessed a lifetime of knowledge - but no first-hand experience of this war. In a twist of fate that was as clear a proof as any that the world had no natural justice, the Blight had come to Ferelden, not Orlais.

"Tell me everything you know about them, Elf."

And the Warden did. She told him of the Deep Roads - her first sight of the Archdemon - and of the Broodmother; forcing her voice, when she could, into the flat tone of instruction. Loghain thought of Sergeant Kellis - Mother Boann - all the women at Ostagar. But the time the Warden had finished, the silence between them was greyer than fog. It was Loghain who broke it - he was not a pragmatist for nothing.

"Not even the Archdemon can attack Denerim alone - if the creature could, it would already be here. The main force must take care of the horde - while the Wardens and the Legion pursue it to the depths."

At his words, life had begun to come back into the young, drawn face. She rose as if too eager to keep still. "I have learned," he said slowly, "That only a Grey Warden can kill an Archdemon." To his surprise, the Warden didn't question how he knew. Loghain frowned darkly - he would need to have a word with Howe about security. But later. He looked at her curiously. "Are you prepared to be the one?"

The Warden rolled her eyes. "What do you think I've been doing these six months: sitting around with Arl Eamon playing checkers? My companions and I have killed two dragons: one an abomination in dragon form; the other the High Dragon worshipped as Andraste." The air of logical discussion fell from her like a cloak, and she was the young, impassioned warrior. The hands and features grew animated. The measured stride became a lithe glide. "You get mages and archers to the rear and flanks. Ali...a warrior under magical protection to distract the beast. Then I run at it from behind and ride the thing. Even a dragon dies when you stab through the soft flesh at the back of the skull!"

"So much for the coldly rational strategist," Loghain observed dryly, but his mind was whirling. A one-day Warden at Ostagar - of course no-one would have told her. Likely the would-be King didn't know. Sensing something in the quality of his silence, the Warden looked at him, nettled. She pitched forward, fists on hips. Short, brilliantly red hair seemed to grow to a natural length and shape in the way of a lion's mane. The lambent eyes were intense, their golden irises encircled by a ring of shadow.

"Do you think I'm afraid to risk my life?"

"No," he said slowly, "You've shown that you can. But I think you do not understand how much you may have to give."

The Warden shrugged. "I may die. It's likely. We all may. I came here: you could have had me tortured, killed. Worse, I could lose my family, my people. I know I could hardly live through that - but I can't imagine anything else."

She turned away, held her hands out to the fire, warming them. The flickering heat-shimmer ruddied her skin. Its shadows danced around her. Loghain was silent, feeling almost as though he were watching her last expression of life. Quicksilver passion flickered in her like light on water; as vibrant - yet as achingly temporal - as the dancing flames.

But he said nothing further. For all her talk, there was a difference between risk and certain death, and he absolutely could not take the chance that she might hesitate. He thought of the men he had killed for Ferelden; the cost of Ostagar. Other soldiers, other battles. The men he had abandoned to die at West Hill... What was she, compared to that?

He wondered if he were losing his sense of proportion.

"So," said the Warden, "Does this mean you'll do it? Ask Queen Anora to visit the Banns and play for time. Join forces?"

"Yes - until we defeat the Blight. I need your allies in order for my men to survive - but not as much as you need my knowledge to protect yours. Will you place your troops at my disposal?"

"Never. I command my men. We have an _alliance_."

Storm-clouds gathered in the room, heavying the air. Within the swirl of compressed energy, Loghain rose, gained his feet, and glared down at her as the hawk watches the prey. The Warden met his stare, lips curved in a cold eager smile. The eyes - now flat as two golden discs - glittered with a quality he recognized, because he shared it: an indomitable fighting will which would see the body it drove broken apart rather than yield. That was a quality of mind, not of muscle.

The moment might have stretched into eternity, had the Warden not deflected it in a way Loghain was incapable of, though he had watched Anora do it. She did not break, she bent. She smiled - a surprisingly bright, challenging grin, and said:

"Ser - you must know that my allies are not really my allies at all: the treaties are with the Wardens. As such, they have no reason to follow you. But you and I will have an understanding: if you only pass along "advice" to me I will consider it."

"Elf, call it what you want," Loghain snapped, exasperated, "Call it advice, suggestions, your mother's bedtime stories, I don't care - but if I say position your men here, or deploy to a flank there, you'd better hear my "advice" and act on it. I'll agree to this "alliance" because I see no way out of it, but I'll be damned if your inexperience gets my men killed. Later we can argue all we want and cut each other's hearts out. Or in your case," he added under his breath, "perhaps cut your throat so you'll shut up."

"I didn't catch that last bit," the Warden snapped.

Loghain wearily lowered his head and shook it. "Nothing, Elf, don't mind me."

"Another thing - if we're to be allies, you had better stop addressing me as "Elf". There are thirty from my community following me already, plus a...gentleman from Antiva, and soon to be ten Dalish tribes. Shouting out "Elf" will get you too many responses. Most of them, you won't like."

"I see your...logic. I will dispute that Denerim's Elves are included in the Wardens' treaties."

The Warden stared at him in a silence that seemed to absorb into itself the crackle of the fire, their breathing. Her body, taut as a drawn bowstring, shivered with repressed violence. The very mildness of her tone was a warning.

"The free peoples of Ferelden expect the protection of their Lords: but you and Arl Howe have not done much work in that line lately. The minute you signed those papers you lost rightful authority. Denerim's Elves are free agents - and will come with me, or stay, as they choose."

Loghain sighed. "The Night Elves I commanded were better served at Gwaren, I'll admit. But I did what was necessary. Denerim's Elves have never fought - you must be the only one. Under Orlais they were slaves to King Meghren. Potter - baker - dockworker: out of these, you'd make an army? Well, I wish you luck with it. As for what to call you, I don't know your given name."

The tamped-down rage flared briefly - a swift current. The air around her crackled with it. "My _father_ calls me that - the father you tried to sell to Tevinter! You may call me Warden. Or Commander. Nothing else."

Fair enough. Since calling the chit "Commander" was out of the question, he settled on the former as acceptable to both.

"Warden, then. Now, if you will excuse me, I must brief Ser Cauthrien at the palace. I will return at dawn tomorrow, and you and I and the Queen will begin preparations."

He had wanted to speak to Anora tonight - but he knew better than to send a servant to wake her from slumber. Anora valued her routines: she went to bed almost at dusk and rose early, believing in the importance of sleep and discipline. Loghain too was an early riser. The fact that he also worked till midnight was immaterial: Ferelden needed him. There would be time enough to sleep after the Blight.

"You - you're going to leave me here? At Arl Howe's estate?" The angular features had paled and tightened; her eyes were dilated, the irises only a golden rim around the black. For a moment, he did not understand why she looked like one betrayed.

Understanding crowded into Loghain's overworked mind. He snorted. "Don't be a fool. I have no interest in hurting you, and will order Arl Howe and Captain Arvall to treat you with respect. I intend to honour the pledge I sent through the Arl's messenger."

The look of outrage faded as the Warden realised he meant it - to be replaced with a very odd expression. For a moment, he had the strange, uncomfortable sense that she hovered on the verge of laughter - or tears.

"Yes, I heard the Arl's message. Perhaps more clearly than you did."

The tone was an echo of his daughter's complaints about Howe's scheming - vague insinuations unsupported by a shred of proof. Yet they'd had no time to concert it... No, of course they had. Howe had warned him his daughter was in contact with the Warden through her maid. How else was the Warden unsurprised by what he'd learned from the Orlesian? And what a co-incidence - the maid had vanished shortly before the Warden had arrived. A couple of tragedians, cueing one another to undermine a loyal ally, create their own drama. As if the Blight were not drama enough.

Yet her look of white, blind shock twisted in his mind...for a fraction of a heartbeat, another face hovered just out of sight like a taunting spectre. And the memory of what Arl Howe had done to Oswyn Sighard made him cringe inside.

Despite his rage, his furious threat to feed the man his balls as soon as the Blight was over, Loghain had no intention of turning on his ally. Howe had been right: he had been acting within the latitude Loghain had given him. His orders had been to root out the conspirators by any means necessary. To give a soldier permission to commit atrocities and then cut him loose when he did not like the results was the worst sort of cowardice. It had happened on Loghain's watch; it was his responsibility.

He disliked Howe, and found him too slippery by far - but the man was a patriot, committed to a united, _independent _Ferelden. Through that framework, everything else fell into place. It had been Howe who had suggested bringing the Warden here, because he knew they needed her allies. If the Warden thought the man would jeopardise the country for the sake of the Alienage fiasco or a petty staring match, she was flattering herself.

"Warden," he said, "I can't allow you to return to Eamon's estate. I believe you mean what you say" (and he did trust her, to his own surprise, though not enough to bet the country on it) "but it would be too easy for Eamon to hold you there until the Landsmeet, and force events to a standstill once more. You insinuate that Arl Howe has disobeyed my orders in some way. I don't deal in hints and sideways remarks. Speak plainly: tell me exactly what you think he's done, and I'll take you with me to the palace. Otherwise - I suggest you get some sleep while you can, and I'll see you in the morning."

The Warden looked at him in silence, some inexplicable conflict storming across her face. In another moment, all that had cleared - her expression was blank, steady, unreadable; a mask of stone.

"I have nothing to say."

"Well, then," Loghain said, a bite of impatience in his voice, "There never was a problem, was there." He summoned the maid from Amaranthine to see the Warden to a guest room - as far as possible from where he held the Orlesian - and had Jowan seal the door. Then he saw Howe and Captain Arvall and explained that the Warden was to be treated as the Queen herself: denied freedom of movement but allowed every comfort. She was not to be harmed. Captain Arvall looked as jumpy as a cat on hot coals - he supposed it was embarrassment over the Alienage mess. In fact, Arl Howe had been surprisingly lenient with him - he hadn't even been demoted. Howe agreed readily and passed the instructions along with his usual smooth efficiency. Loghain took his leave and left. He paused a moment at the gates, head in hands, and reflected on a world saturated with nonsense. Then he straightened, steps firm and unyielding as he headed for the palace.

* * *

Rilian stood in the centre of the guest room. Its four-poster bed was grander than any she'd seen: a dark and ugly monolith. She was so exhausted the room took on a dreamlike quality. Sometimes as a child she'd dreamed of vast shadowy buildings, of losing herself in a labyrinthine mass of alien corridors. There was a dark, ornately carved cabinet to hold clothes - a desk and chair. The carvings were of dogs. Rilian wrinkled her nose. It looked like somebody's dream of a dog, not the wonderful, exuberant, lolloping reality. Her brain whirled as dizzily as a drunken bee. She was glad to find the Teyrn was a man she could understand - and work with. He was blind, stubborn, ruthless, capable of almost any atrocity when his country was threatened - but he was _faithful_. Far more trustworthy than the man in whom he had placed his faith. She felt her blood go thin when she thought of Howe. She wanted to hide, shaken by an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Vaughan had made her a thing. Arl Howe had the same eyes. Howe was worse, though, because in his pinpoint gaze was the precision of high, reptilian, calculating intelligence. Understanding of what he was created a dread she actually tasted, like acid at the back of her throat. Walking up to the estate - being disarmed by Captain Arvall - facing Loghain and meeting the eyes of Howe in the Hall hadn't accomplished that. Of course, she'd been afraid - but her

fear was entwined with a fierce battle-anger that made her want to strike back. Waiting was no doubt easier to bear than rape or torture - but it was harder than defiance.

But she couldn't tell Loghain the truth, no matter how she yearned to. Erlina's words were burned into her mind: _if he __learns I spoke to you of this, you finish me. _If she told Loghain he would take her to the palace - have angry words with Howe - but he would not turn against his ally, just for that. Howe would not dare touch her - but he would make Erlina pay as surely as he would Captain Arvall. The thought was a clammy hand at the small of her back.

The gentle cough behind her brought her round in a defensive crouch. The sight of the small Elven woman in a shapeless grey robe was so far from what she expected that sheer surprise held her in place long enough to still the hammering of her heart. Her gentle pale hair seemed as fine as spider silk, and as gracefully light. Her skin was paper thin and white as old bone. At first glance the woman looked old - old beyond all joy - but then she turned and Rilian saw she was only Nigella's age, or her father's. In a soft singsong voice she said, "I am Myrtle, servant to Arl Howe, assigned to you."

"I don't..." Rilian began - then stopped. She didn't need a servant - but suddenly her aching loneliness, her terror, expressed itself as a crawling chill all over her skin. She needed the warmth of contact - the touch of one of her own - if only for a moment. "Thank you," she whispered. Her hand hovered, white and erratic - froze in sudden indecision - then lightly touched the woman's shoulder.

Myrtle's gaze fell on her, but didn't settle. The woman's brown eyes were fractured, abstracted - staring into some memory with a smoky, inward-looking distance. Then she held out her hands, and the bright silk gown she held flashed like kingfisher feathers.

"Her ladyship bade me bring this to you," the woman said. Rilian knew the clothes she wore would make no more difference to her fate than the armour would have done - but undressing at Arl Howe's estate was out of the question. Despite her earlier pragmatism, she _needed_ as much armour around herself as possible. Still, she could not keep from touching something so beautiful, feeling its lightness run like water through her fingers. Nobody in the Alienage would ever have had such silk - the closest they could come were the wedding dresses lovingly created from pieces of fine cloth, collected through lifetimes and passed down from mother to daughter. "Give the Queen my thanks," she said softly, and then, knowing the woman would understand, blurted, "It's as lovely as a wedding dress!"

Wedding dress - wedding night. Nelaros - Alistair...The mingled ironies, the repetition, threatened to choke her.

The woman smiled like sun on flowers. Rilian caught her breath, the expression was so beautiful. "I made my pretty girl a dress like this."

"You have a daughter?" Rilian asked eagerly, wanting to prolong the conversation, find common ground. This woman was not from Denerim's Alienage - she must be from Amaranthine - but the talk of marriages, births and deaths was always the same; the glue that bound her people together.

"Five little ones," the woman said, "I had five little ones." At the last, loss chilled Rilian's heart.

"I'm sorry..."

Myrtle didn't seem to hear her. She continued, looking off into the distance. "Five little children. None left. I loved them all. So many troubles. The sicknesses. The slavers." Rilian's stomach churned at the sing-song recital, but Myrtle wasn't finished. "At least my pretty girl didn't live for the filthy slavers to carry away. It was better for her to die. But why should she have to? Or her brothers and sisters? It was Arl Howe's doing." Her lips thinned until Rilian could only think of a scar.

While Rilian groped for words like a blind man stumbling in the dark, Myrtle wandered onto a completely different subject. "The guards brought their former Captain downstairs. The Arl said he should sing in the dungeons for two days. The men were talking about you. I heard them laughing..."

Rilian's stomach collapsed in on itself, became a burning coal. She nearly doubled over. Then she gritted her teeth and straightened up, lips pulled back in a soundless grimace of determination. Whatever Arl Howe meant to do, he still needed her. He couldn't kill her - couldn't even leave visible damage. The thought of all the unseen things he could do prickled her skin like a mass of icy wasps, but Shianni's face swam through the roiling storm... _If you're not dead, you're still alive...I just don't want them treating me like a fragile doll..._ No steel was ever stronger, Rilian thought, and understood exactly why her cousin had not wanted anyone to know - how that would have made it quite unbearable. Whatever happened tonight, she must still lead men against the Blight tomorrow - needed all her strength to keep her self-control and sanity. She wouldn't tell - not Alistair, certainly not Loghain - but she would survive to see Howe dead.

The lilting, gentle voice meandered on. "I heard them in the kitchens - that's where I normally work, you see..." The strong, capable hand, its callused palms as rough as sand, reached into a fold of the grey robe. "I don't know why her ladyship sent me here. I work in the kitchens: with gleaming pots - the smell of spices - sharp knives..."

The gleaming sharpness came up, winking at her; candlelight glittering along its edge, hard and true.

Myrtle gave the blade into the young woman's hand, then turned to melt into the corridor, where the guards and the boy in robes were waiting to seal the door. She needed nothing else. She was a ghost of vengeance, thinned and bled white, drifting through the house of her children's murderer. She was quite startled when the golden stranger - the young woman who flickered at the edges of her reality like a lambent flame - moved to touch her, shyly at first, then embraced her in a passion of gratitude. The greyness exploded in radiant colour, like rainbow dyes in water - the warmth rippled and shifted. The taut shoulder muscles became smooth and delicate; the red hair darkened to brown. For one brief, transient moment, Myrtle had her daughter back.

A shout from outside broke the spell. Myrtle curled into herself like smoke - the warm living presence vanished as the woman glided away. Rilian felt the loss, the coldness along her skin. Taut as a drawn bow, she crouched by the door, blade ready. But the only man's voice she heard was a familiar one: a soft, slightly nasal whine, with leaden undertones of self-contempt, self-pity, resignation and fear. Yet she had heard him laugh in exaltation when his attempt to save Connor worked - heard him promise to try with an eager hopefulness that couldn't hide fear, but refused to surrender to it. He had deserved better than to be given to the Circle, and was clearly as much a prisoner here as she. She heard him seal the door, and the guards' footsteps fade away. Of course, they had all night - and other victims. She thought of Captain Arvall's fate - for trying to protect her - and vomit crawled up the back of her throat. His pain, and Myrtle's, were dark chains weighting her to the earth.

She held the blade in front of her like an anchor, a lifeline. The candlelight turned it to a molten sliver; her body, burning with exhaustion, seemed to melt and flow toward it. It led her, became part of her, all her will poured into it. She blew out the candle. They would be coming from a lighted corridor - she would see and they would be blind. Instantly the pearly moonlight shone through the slitted window, turning the heavy furniture to a mass of glistening silver lines. She was a fly in a spider's web; the knife was a needle, pinning her in place. The oily blackness between the silver made a jigsaw pattern and seemed to pulse like purple bruises, while her thoughts ran everywhere like spilled milk. She was sure she felt Alistair's waking - his sense of horror and betrayal on finding the note. It was a lead weight in her heart. What had Loghain meant when he spoke of killing the Archdemon? He had said...something about giving... She tried to remember but the thought slid away. Other thoughts paraded around her - a disjointed storm of colour against the blackness.

The shadowy bulk of the bed was a solid block of yearning. The moonlight bathed the white sheet in a frozen glow like a glacier. It was madness to lie down - but she had reached the limit of her endurance. She sank down, uncovered, the knife still clutched in her hand, and dozed in a kind of half-waking nightmare. Her nerves strained for the sound of footsteps, while sparks of dreams danced across her brain like seeds of lightning, like white birds pecking...

...She lay half-locked in the embrace of a featureless expanse of ice. Parts of her - her head, her knees, her fingertips - broke the surface, but the bulk of her body was buried, clutched, the frozen weight holding her down. She was so cold she burned - and her fingertips, visible to her, had gone the sickly-purple of dying flesh. She lay looking up into a high pulsing sky with an icy wind tearing over her. The shadow of a vast wingspan stained the ground; the purple-black wave flowed towards her. She yearned to disappear into the ice, pull it over her like bed sheets, but her own force of will would not let her. She gazed upward to watch the creature approach. The Archdemon was a roiling red-and-black flame - she drowned in its shadow. At the last instant, when it was so close she could smell the taint on its breath: iron tinged with sickly-sweet decay, everything changed.

She was behind the dragon. Its long, skeletal body stretched in front. Her entire being was seared with hate and a kind of ecstasy: she was no longer helpless! She only held a kitchen knife - but she knew it would be enough. She ran along the dark ridges of its spine. It was what she did, as natural as breathing. She reached the neck, straddled the creature, raised the knife. The blade screamed downwards.

Then a strange thing happened. She was following the path of the blade - stretched out flat along the dragon's spine - her own blood dripping into the wound. She felt her musculature and skeleton fluidly rearranging themselves. It was wonderful, like discovering a forgotten freedom - or immortality. She spread her wings, laughing. The green hills and valleys and farmland of Ferelden rolled beneath her: a perfect, beautiful map. She almost saw it as Loghain did, touched the lightest tremor of his love for that rugged, untamed country. And she saw it as herself: never mind the borders, those were _people_ down there; tiny sparks of life. So small and yet so bright.

Something was wrong. The sky roiled with fire; the land crawled with taint. It reached inside her with sticky fingers; tore her open, rearranged her. She could no longer control her flight; sped downwards in a terrifying arc of headlong, unpreventable consequence. She reached the victim buried in the ice - claws extended towards the upturned face...

_...Alistair's face..._

Rilian woke gasping for breath, the weight of horror squeezing her chest like a vise. Nothing made sense except the certainty of danger. Tearing herself out of bed, stumbling, clutching the knife, she could hear her own breath whistling through her teeth. She heard booted footsteps, coming down the corridor like a many-legged creature. The air in the room was thick - the air of nightmare that fought every movement. Surely she could be up in seconds! But no - hours seemed to pass while she swayed and fought for balance. For Howe and his men, the air was weightless - or a current, speeding them towards her.

But she reached the door just as Jowan's voice, wretched with misery, opened the seal.

Rilian was no longer afraid. One part of her was coldly eager. The other dispassionately calculated odds. She was balanced on the balls of her feet, bent low in a feral crouch, ready to spring. Her mouth went dry and her stomach muscles tightened. She raised the knife like a glittering fang.

The door burst open.


	8. Chapter 8: Scarlet and Silver

_Author's note: The beginning of this chapter is quite dark and contains themes of torture, violence and implied rape. It is not graphic, but might be disturbing. I'll post a brief summary at the start of the next chapter, to make it possible to skip this one._

The door burst open.

The four figures were blurred, shadowy blocks, back-lit by orange torchlight. Light glinted off metal studs and strips, wreathed them in tiny dark flames. Their faces, uncovered by helms, were fleshy and featureless as pumpkins. She slashed murderously across one stretched, exposed throat. A mist of blood darkened the air between them like approaching dusk. He straightened in one spasmodic lunge, both hands clutching the gaping wound. Summoning impossible strength, he stepped toward her; extended reddened, begging hands. He tumbled forward in wasted hope.

Rilian had no time to go for the sword. She continued the arc - jabbed the point into the armour join beneath the outstretched arm of the next. His bestial howl raised the hair on the back of her neck. His dropped torch guttered into darkness. The figures became a shifting ambiguity - Rilian saw the remaining two as shadowy angles of arm, shoulder, chest; blades darting like tongues of steel. She tried to keep in the doorway, allowing them to come at her only one at a time - but the third man barrelled into his comrade. She dodged to the side. Terror ground through her as the dagger-hilt, still half-buried, slipped from her grasp. She ducked low and made a convulsive lunge for the dropped sword. Aching, thankful fingers closed around it just as the third man struck. His blade whistled overhead. He cursed, swore - righted himself just as she scrambled to her feet. After the Dalish blade, this one felt heavy and clumsy as a plank of wood. He came to her slowly, with a low, smooth gait unexpected in such a large man. She crouched lightly, balanced on the balls of her feet, and spared a quick glance to see where she was. Near the centre of the room - not where she wanted to be. As the two came at her, she edged to the wall, needing it at her back. She slid sideways in a crouching glide. Then a movement in the lighted doorway warned her. A fifth figure approached. Robed, he glided like a wraith, the cloth rippling like pondwater. _Jowan_, she thought. Her muscles turned to water. _Magic..._

The nearest man attacked - a two-handed descending slash that hammered her sword-tip toward the floor. In the instant when both weapons were grounded, she drove the crown of her head directly into his nose. Cartilage crunched. A knee to the crotch doubled him over. Measuring, she drew back her own blade and swung. It sliced cleanly into his neck.

The blow was costly. Rilian had no time to recover. The fourth man was on her. Frantic, she jerked her sword free - swept it upwards. Not quick enough. He was a wall of black water speeding towards her; his blade the crest of a wave. The wave shivered, reversed itself. A burst of light dazzled her. There was a roaring flame, a thick coppery taste. Then the world exploded in a tornado of weight, curses, hot breath. The sword was wrenched from her grasp. There was a lull - a momentary relief from the pressure. Rilian rolled to her feet, faced the guard, who now held both blades.

Dizziness washed her senses to a weaving spiral of dots. Each breath bubbled, drawn through the blood - copper-sweet and edged with taint - that poured from her broken nose. Her red-tinged vision showed the black-bearded face split in a feral grin. She was half-stifled by the rank human smell of dirty flesh and hair, bloodlust, rage and sex. Rilian gathered herself, using white fury against the fear, and dashed in with a quick stabbing punch, and out again, narrowly evading the first slashing blade. The flat of the other caught her shoulder and she stumbled, unable to catch herself. She slammed against the sharp corner of the cabinet and it tore a gash across her cheek as she fell. Dimly, she could hear shouting: that thin, reedy, anguished voice, calling on the man to stop... Something about Arl Howe, and damage...

She got up slowly and turned to face the shem again, calling on every ounce of strength and the gutter-fighting skills that had saved her against Vaughan, knowing she'd already lost. It only remained to keep on fighting to the end.

He beat her with the delight of a monstrous child, using the flat of the blades and then his fists, shouting encouragement when she struck back. The room was a shifting, sliding chaos; the black shadow writhed: everywhere at once, never there to hit. When she fell, he stepped back - slowly, savouring the hunt - and put the swords down. He lifted her to her feet by her hair, encouraged her to strike at him again, and when she did, he let her drop. She spat at him. Her last blurred, collapsing image was of him straddling her, one fist raised like a cobra.

At the blow, a burst of light dazzled her, and then she was tumbling over and over in a cool stream that bathed her in freedom, washed away the pain.

Something choked off her breathing. She snapped awake. Black cloth suffocated her. She struggled, tried to roll over, but she couldn't move. Her entire body was a screaming mass of pain. It was only a little worse where the ropes bit into her wrists and ankles. Under her back was a hard, rough surface. The air crawled sluggishly with mould and fear, blood and rot. The cloth stuck to the side of her face - the cut was a line of fire. Every muscle ached; her broken ribs grated and stabbed. But she'd had bruises and broken ribs often enough before - there was nothing to indicate anything worse. She still felt the light gentleness of cloth around her body. How had Jowan stopped the guard from doing what he had intended? And what good did it do her, when she was here, in Arl Howe's power? Tears of fury filled Rilian's eyes. Clenching her fists, staring sightlessly up as though seeking the stars, she ground her teeth to muffle the hot breath of strangled weeping. Something in the quality of the silence told her she was not alone and she fought down rising panic. This was worse than the other would have been: the sheer helplessness; the shut-in, thick, breathless dark. Every instinct told her to struggle, but she held back, because Arl Howe was here, watching her, and she knew her futile efforts were what he wanted to see.

"Howe," she said, and though her voice was muffled by blood and cloth it was so calm, so cold, that it astonished her. "I know you're here. Let's get this over with."

There was a faint, dry chuckle. The sound of it wheezed and rasped like her own breathing. "You flatter yourself, knife-ear. It is not your flesh I want." There was the heavy breath of cloth on stone; the sudden glint of torchlight through dark threads. "I hope," the voice went on, sharpening a little, "That you are paying attention."

Something - it could have been a gauntlet or sword-hilt - prodded her broken ribs. She bit down so hard a fat bead welled in her lower lip, anchoring herself with pain _she _controlled. A hand felt over her face, applied pressure to the cut cheek, stroked the line of her jaw. When Rilian said nothing, the long aristocratic fingers tightened around her neck like closing teeth. When she was reeling, the tightness eased and she gasped, aware of nothing but the need to breathe, the roar of blood in her ears.

Arl Howe's laughter came in a series of sibilant, heaving gusts, like the wind through rain-washed leaves. Another rustle of cloth and the black hood came off. His face swam before her: indistinct, half-drowned in the murky, red-washed light. One elegant hand rested, with the solicitous touch of friends at sickbeds, on her thigh. Rilian was so numb and cold she might have been encased in ice... _She yearned to disappear, pull it over her like bed sheets, but her own force of will would not let her... _Now the nightmare she still desperately denied at heart was reality; she was already more than half-drowned. There, from her neck on down, lay a nothingness freely possessed by a monster. The pinpoint eyes were dispassionate; her body a slab of meat on a butcher's block that happened to be still breathing. To ease the nightmare's suffocating pressure, to thrust out some flicker of her own will against its engulfment, Rilian flung out sarcasm, voice cracking just a little:

"There are easier ways of getting my attention. You and Loghain have my armies - you don't want my flesh - why am I here?"

As she spoke, the elegant hand made a beckoning gesture. Rilian could not see the second person - she could barely see two feet in front of her - but a shadow detached itself from the wall and shuffled closer, dragging footsteps aching with reluctance. She sensed the crackle of magic - the kind of magic not even Morrigan possessed - and knew the presence.

"Destroying the trade with Tevinter was clever, knife-ear - you have made yourself indispensible. You have also given me a problem - namely, the mud that sticks to a signed document. And you are ready to supplant me. You - the Teyrn - the Queen: between you, you are dangerous. Alone, the Queen is - extremely eligible. You and Loghain are necessary - at least, until we defeat the Blight. Afterwards - you will eliminate him. And when the Bannorn learn who murdered the Hero of River Dane - well, no-one will question the sale of your kind. Rats in a nest. Get rid of them, or suffer them again."

As though the smooth, well-modulated voice compelled him, Jowan approached: movements jerky, as if his body were curled around the sources of his guilt. His bloodless face was empty as a hanged man's. He knelt as though he could no longer find the strength to stand, and Arl Howe moved behind him. Rilian remembered Uldred, that blood-red sack of lust with a human face, raising abominations. _It isn't magic that corrupts - it's having power..._ Looking at the two, she saw that it was true. It was the Blood Mage who was the puppet - the other, hands resting lightly on the stooped shoulders, pulled the strings. The face above encapsulated all the horror of the Harrowing chamber: it was a demon-soul beneath the water-smooth urbanity. The smile was barbed with fine, sharp hooks of cruelty at the corners of the mouth; the eyes beamed fond, languorous anticipation. Those eyes sought hers and found Rilian staring back, grinning insanely.

"Perfect plan!" she cried, in a hysterical levity that somehow liberated her, "Predatory politician! Please don't think I'm criticizing. Who am I to criticize? A talking head - just a small piece of a Warden - soon to be a Blood Puppet. But I'm confused. I've seen Blood Magic at work - heard of Templars forced to murder each other by Uldred's lackeys. But won't it be a long time before I can act - can't kill Loghain _before _he's led the campaign against the darkspawn, you know. Will the effects last? Can you wipe my memory? Won't Templars and Mages sense something amiss?"

She was sure her gibes would be answered to her own despair. For the moment, it was enough just to have mocked that gloating assurance to silence.

"I assure you - this will work, and has done. But why waste time explaining what you will see first-hand?"

The shadow moved. Jowan stood - slowly, as if moving through water - and placed sweating hands lightly against the pulse in her temples. The alien words were a low thrum, almost voiceless. She felt them as a pressure in the air; as smoke, dark and tentacular, worming inside her. She met it with the black tendrils of an iron will, sent the intricate latticework down every cell. Every nerve screamed the same message: a primal challenge. Fear. But no surrender. She gathered herself, setting herself to fight on the level of the mind. It was where she had always fought, and won: Adaia's death, a seventy hour working week, Vaughan's cruelty, starvation, cold and disease. She was aware of tiny rivers of blood, carrying messages of warmth and vitality. She felt the deep inward prickle of an alien energy - something that flared, crackled, groped for, tried to hijack the waters... The low thrum of pressure built steadily. She had felt such pain before: remembered blood as black as sin in a silver chalice, the words of a different ceremony...

... She stared down into the goblet. The liquid was thick, like tar. An evening breeze made fat, lazy bubbles crawl thickly along the surface like boiling pitch. They opened like greedy little mouths, then collapsed to nothingness. Rilian raised it to her lips. It crawled down her throat, hot as lava, a salty tang that carried images of predation, of unity, a vast low hum of chittering voices, a silver song as pure as starlight. A burning tree reached searing roots inside her, building to a sheet of blind, incandescent flame. She trembled, mouth gaping in the slow birth of a mind-emptying howl. _Warden..._

... Her skin seemed to be trying to slide off her body, but she held on to a distant, hard calm. Howe had done this before - but not to a Warden. She knew that was the only thing that would get her through this. The tides of her blood wavered and rippled, called by a will not her own. The swift-winged ship of her mind danced on a roiling sea. Its sails were tatters, its hull leaking. It rode the swirling tide of a watery whirlpool, a dark, spiralling vortex. Hauling on lines, Rilian fought to raise the sail. Every time she pulled, the line snapped. The chanting voice swelled from the wine-coloured depths. The boat rail gave way, disappeared into the vortex. Planks separated along the hull. The mast snapped, speared downward. Rilian braced against the canted deck, clawed for a handhold. The sea rose to embrace her, cover her like a shroud. She stared into a long tunnel, seeing at its end the faintest flicker of light, the shivering indistinctness of a face. Pale, shocked, in agonising pain. She followed the tunnel, clinging to the slenderest, most durable strand of her own will: a spider on a silken thread. And woke on the plank of wood, Jowan leaning over her. She felt as light and empty as an eggshell.

She met Jowan's eyes. His face seemed in constant motion. She heard Arl Howe asking him if the spell had worked and braced for his response. What would Howe do when he realised it had not - that she knew his secret? He still needed her - would he count on Loghain not believing her? Who would he threaten, to keep her quiet? But Jowan was nodding, lying through his teeth. He reached to undo the ropes with shaking hands. She sat up, slowly, testing limbs. She wore pain like a fiery suit of armour; viewed it with mild disinterest. Her limbs were the armaments of some lethal machine. She rose, gained her feet. She was far back inside herself; thoughts, hopes, dreams unravelled, dissolved into darkness like droplets of smoke. All that remained was a small, hard nugget: a predatory shiver impersonal and lethal as plague. She scanned the room, absently noting the crusted pool of blood along the stone, the scratches in the walls. She and Jowan and Arl Howe were the only people here. She walked past Howe - smelled him: velvet and cruelty and rosewater - reached the torch bracket along the wall. She grabbed it. It was the only part of her she clearly felt, and it was a tongue of fire, a crematory flame. With one quick, spasmodic lunge, she thrust it into Howe's face.

He screamed, shrilly, both hands reaching up to his ruined face, spinning in a crazed, blind circle. She watched the hideous spectacle, the dance of agony, with blank dispassion: crawling flames painting skin in lurid shades, the scent of wax and perfume charred to an acrid stink. One hand clutched his blinded eye - the other drew the slender sword at his hip. He advanced, face saturated with hate: the mask of urbanity peeled away, only the monster beneath. She dodged like a cat and sprung - barrelled right into him, clawed hands going for eyes and face. She bore him down, curled fingers though the well-groomed hair, yanked his head back then slammed it into stone. Her devouring gold eyes were disinterested as glass, lit by compressed energy void of feeling. She was every darkspawn who feels its prey go down, the salty, iron tang of blood in her mouth. She slammed him until he lay still and broken and remained for a slow crawl of minutes, still straddling his back. At last, the drip drip trickled into her consciousness, along with Jowan's hand on her shoulder. The air stretched thin and taut. The mantle of pain dropped back onto her shoulders.

"Rilian," Jowan whispered, voice thin and shaking, "Warden..."

Rilian hissed in rage. She whirled, faced the mage, who backed away. Fear painted his face. A lightning jolt brought her up short. She felt the ripple in the air even through the rage - the glimmer of returning conscience - thoughts and realisations like quicksilver beneath scarlet. Jowan had, in his own fashion, helped her. He had not dared defy the guards or Howe directly, but he had done what he could. _She_ had done no more for him. She drew a shuddering breath, struggled for control. She needed to make her brain resume functioning - needed to _think._

"He - he's dead. You've killed him."

Numbed by the inanity of the remark, Rilian could only stare. Jowan's next remark carried more sense. "What do we do about his guardsmen?"

"Arvall," Rilian decided, "We're going to save Captain Arvall."

She tried to rise, then lurched and nearly doubled over, retching. The blurred edges of the stone chamber curled in on themselves, blackness seeping from its edges like congealing blood, narrowing around her like the tightening of a noose. The sound she let out through gritted teeth was a soft groan, as unstoppable by act of will as the blood that trickled down her cheek or the cold sweat that prickled her body.

"Don't try to stand yet. A hard beating takes it out of you." Even through the dim haze, Rilian recognized the force, the knowing behind the words. _Templars..._she thought hazily. "I could - I could heal you..."

Rilian's stomach heaved at the idea. "No magic."

"You'll need your strength to rescue anyone," the thin voice argued. "If there's ever a right use of Blood Magic, this is it." His face crumpled to an almost petulant look. He gestured weakly at the lifeless ruin on the stone, not quite looking at it. "And there's enough blood to...well, he certainly doesn't need it anymore." He blushed and looked away, shifting, unable to keep still. How old was he? Rilian wondered. No more than her age, despite the fine lines of cynicism and fear and bitter disappointment in the mobile, expressive face. The odds on rescuing anyone in her current state raced through her mind as rapidly as Tevinter coins falling into Howe's purse.

"Do it," she decided.

Rilian fought a visceral shiver as that low, reedy hum began again. She watched with horrified fascination as the thing on the ground collapsed inward, emptied like an opened gourd. The air around them rippled and shifted - not with blood but with its essence; some raw, elemental life. Perhaps Howe had not been dead long enough to affect that - or perhaps there had been a thread of life within the broken body - now wrenched from him. She didn't care. The power crawled along her skin, brighter than the torchlight, scalding along her cheek and shoulder, then burning deeper. With an intolerable wrench, the broken ribs re-knit. Rilian reached upward, put both hands to her broken nose, snapped it back into place. The pain was eye-watering - she blinked back tears - a moment later the burning soothed that too. For one blind moment, Rilian clung to the pain - an armour, a kind of shield. The relief was almost an agony in itself and she found herself clutching for the last of the bruises and knotted lumps like an anchor. She shuddered, fought the urge to curl into herself. Later - when she was alone... She would not cry in front of Jowan.

She placed her hands to her knees and rose, slowly, testing her body. It wasn't her - she was outside it, viewing it almost as Howe had done - a puppet, her own will pulling the strings. At last, satisfied, she steeled herself and reached down to take the sword and sword-belt from the corpse. Charred, twisted, bloodless - a thing of nightmares. It seemed to reflect him much better than the living mask had done. A glint of silver edged through the dark velvet tunic. Rilian grabbed the cloth with broken nails and tore it. Underneath was a fine chainshirt, light as the scales of a fish. Rilian heaved the corpse onto its back, removing the keys and swordbelt and wrestling with the armour. When Jowan made a revolted noise she shrugged. "You drained his blood and object to this? Now help me - time's wasting. "

The chainshirt was a little big, but moved with her like water. The sword was thin and slightly curved. The cold silver blade gleamed almost blue. Its pommel was gold, set with a large emerald. A mere show-piece, good-for-nothing? Rilian swung it sideways, against one leg of the wooden table. It went through as if it were butter, with a sound like breaking bone. A white flare of exaltation began to melt the frozen chill. Rilian turned a fierce slit of a grin on Jowan. "Let's go."

Sword in hand, Rilian padded lightly down the corridor. Jowan followed, carrying the torch. The air was a living thing, curling around her, reeking of blood and rot and despair. It struck her like a fist. The first two cells were empty. All that was left were the stains of old blood, the iron chains, the instruments whose only purpose was pain. In the third cell she found a man. He was kneeling, arms wrapped tightly around his middle, mumbling to himself. There was something unbearably familiar about the small, jerky movements of his head. Rilian knelt beside him and smelled - beneath the crusted grime of old sweat and urine and fear - something sickly-sweet: molasses tinged with decay. The face was little more than skin stretched over a skull. Closed now, the eyes were sunk in sockets nearly as dark as the lines of darkspawn infection discolouring the flesh. Rilian murmured wordless sounds of reassurance. He did not seem aware, but the twitchy movements slowed, the ragged breathing calmed.

"Can you do anything for him?" she asked, keeping her voice soft.

"I...I can try. It's the Blight, isn't it?" When she nodded, Jowan set to work. He drew his dagger and made a small cut in his own arm, with the precision of long practice. He murmured words, and Rilian saw the man bathed in that vitality. But it did nothing to faze the infection.

He scrabbled on the floor, muttering a word.

"Is that your name?" Rilian whispered, "Rexel?"

"Rexel," he whispered, no heavier than a sigh. "Ostagar..."

Rilian continued to hold him as he rocked.

"Water - so thirsty..."

"Here, sure," she said softly. Her left hand stroked the filthy hair, tilted his head backwards, laid her palm gently against the hollow cheek near the half-open mouth. The right reached backward, silently. She felt the cold metal pressed into it, brought the arm round and forward, placed the tip of the dagger against the curve of the throat and drove it up into his brain.

The warren was far bigger than she would have guessed - they were two corridors down before they ran into any guards. Three men. Two led the way, walking side-by-side. One carried a torch. The third followed, several feet behind. Rilian parried the first, spun about, catching the second under the armpit as he raised his sword to strike. She reversed and swung back high, catching the other across the face. His hands came up. Blood spurted between his fingers and he sank down, moaning. A quick blow across the back of the neck ended his agony. There was a shiver in the air, and the third man jerked as though he had hit a wall. His sword fell from a nerveless grip. He stared with the wild, white eyes of a trapped rat. Slowly, delicately, Rilian walked towards him and placed the point of her sword to his throat.

"Can he talk?" she asked Jowan. Jowan released the spell. "Where are Captain Arvall and the Orlesian Warden?"

The man's mouth worked jerkily, soundlessly. Rilian pushed the sword-point deeper. A drop of blood welled, was washed away in a flood of acrid sweat. He managed to say, "The Captain is here, in the central chamber. Turn left, then left again. The large middle door. They brought the Warden upstairs, to the northernmost chamber."

"How many guards?"

The man was anxious to be helpful. "Three men working on the Captain and the boy - they say he's Bann Sighard's son, Oswyn. Five more in the chamber ahead - but you can avoid them. At least thirty on the main floor."

_Thirty guards... _Rilian thought numbly. They would need help - the Captain's - and, she realised, the Queen's...

Idly, she said to Jowan, "Shall we kill him quickly, or cut him up first?"

Moaning, the man shook his head. His hands opened and closed spasmodically. "Please! I can tell you more!"

"Tell me what?"

"About the other soldiers. Two hundred men from Amaranthine, commanded by the Arl's son, Thomas. Coming to meet him here."

"When?"

"Tomorrow. The next day. I don't know. But I told you. Don't kill me!"

Rilian felt dried blood crack on her face, knew she had bared her teeth. She didn't see Jowan look at the expression, then flinch and turn away. She said, "I don't kill the helpless. Not even scum. Jowan - will you lock him in the cell. If I touch him, I'll cut his throat." Jowan nodded, and Rilian kept the sword trained on the guard as the mage bundled him into the nearest cell and turned the lock.

"I'll let Captain Arvall deal with you," she said through the bars, "Maybe he'll be kinder than you were to him. Or maybe not..."

They followed the route the guard had given them and found two more prisoners in cells. One was an old man, only skin and rags, both hands severed and infection eating its way up the arms. Rilian knelt beside him, choked with the memories of Adaia - that hideous day in the square... Barely conscious, he made no response as she stroked his forehead, murmured wordless comfort, and gave him the same mercy she'd given Rexel. The second man was unmarked - but on his knees praying, his eyes glassy, faraway, strange... Beside her, Jowan gave a start of shock.

"That - that's Ser Irminric, one of the Templars that captured me!"

"Don't play ignorant," Rilian said coldly, "You must have seen Loghain's men capture him when they got you."

"I...yes, but I thought they killed him! I've never been down here..." The pleading expression curdled to a sullen glare. "Should I have tried to save him? He would have killed me! The Templars thinks life in any guise is too good for an apostate. A Blood Mage can be killed with impunity, with pleasure. Some of them even think our dying screams carry their names over to the Maker." Slowly, as if only just realising his own predicament, the angular face began to whiten. "Arl Howe was my only protection - and you've killed him! Even if we make it out of here I'm a dead man...and I would have given it all up for her..."

The last inexplicable words trailed off.

"Get a hold of yourself! You're not going to die. I'll do what I should have done at Arl Eamon's: conscript you."

"A...A Grey Warden? Me? But life as a Warden is dangerous - and short! Darkspawn - the Archdemon - no safety, no rest..."

"Are you always this scared to take risks? Maker - how did you ever end up a Blood Mage in the first place!"

Jowan coloured, shifted from foot to foot and stared down at the floor. "I was scared of failing my Harrowing," he muttered.

Rilian rolled her eyes. "Dangerous or not, it beats the alternative. There's no other choice for the likes of you and me. Make up your mind soon - I'll protect you if you let me."

And she meant it - even though she knew the promise was a trap that would never lose its danger for either of them.

"Come with us," she urged the kneeling man, but he looked through her.

His brown eyes were painted with a wet glaze as he spoke to spectres: one the saint whose cold statues adorned the city; the other his sister, a woman named Alfstanna. A ghost of memory fluttered like a moth - something Alistair had told her once. _Lyrium withdrawal..._

"If I find your sister would you go with her?"

The huddled man shifted - held out a jewelled signet ring. Rilian blinked. Such a ring could only come from Ferelden's nobility. She had seen one like it on Arl Eamon's finger. Good. She didn't care whether the woman was a lady or a washerwoman - but a noble would be easier to find. "Take it...take it..."

The bright flash winked like a jay as Rilian slipped it carefully into her belt pouch.

Rilian and Jowan turned left, then left again, spiralling inward toward the dark heart of the warren. A man's hoarse cries echoed strangely off the walls: leading them, then suddenly coming louder at their side, then louder still from behind them. The torchlight trailed grey wisps of shadow like veils. Two shadows detached themselves from the wall, striking simultaneously. Rilian did not try to parry. She did not decide consciously what to do at all. She was instinct and training, more a force than a person. She dropped to one knee, facing left - slashed with the diamond edge of Howe's blade. Both opponents' strikes whispered overhead - her own got the man through the belly. She whirled to the right - sword slicing through the dying man as she turned - and delivered a back-handed slash to the other. It took him in the thigh - exactly where Zevran had shown the main artery to be. Blood fountained. She knew he'd be dead in moments. Not bothering to finish them, she rose quickly, and ran the last few yards to the large central door. The scream sounded again - choked off sharply. Rilian kicked the door down.

The Captain was tied to the rack in the centre of the room. The two men working on him were already heading for her. A third - she saw him dimly from the corner of one eye - was finishing some business in the corner of the L-shaped chamber. He lurched almost comically, fumbling with his trouser belt and reaching for his sword at the same time.

Rilian engaged the first man and found herself pushed back, outmatched in size and skill. Jowan slipped to the side and began frantically trying to untie the Captain. She had no time to spare for them - had all she could handle trying to avoid that two-handed blade. She could not afford to parry too many of the blows - if they did not snap the blade, they might shatter her arms. Air-hunger began to burn in her lungs, and the weight of the night's events seemed to close in on her. Her head swam. She backed to the doorway - at least the second man could not reach her without going through his companion. She heard the faint chant of Jowan's healing, half-drowned as though through water. The guard grabbed the hilt of her sword, twisting it, nearly breaking her wrist. She struggled to pull back, and the second man edged forward. Then Captain Arvall, a roaring fury, leapt forward and impaled the first through the spine. Rilian regained her weapon, dodged a blow, lunged forward just as Arvall struck the second man. She never knew which of them finished him. Jowan was facing the third with the fierce determination of a man past his limits. The weasel-faced guard saw the Elf and Captain coming for him, tried to back away, tripped, and impaled himself on Jowan's dagger. Jowan calmly withdrew the blade, wiped it on his sleeve, and doubled up with spasms of dry heaving.

Grimly, in silence, the Captain knelt to strip the armour off the body of the first guard. Rilian turned away - instinct telling her to turn back only when the Captain was clothed and looking like himself again - and rounded the corner, looking for the other victim. The huddled figure had to be the noble's boy the guard had talked about - Bann Sighard's son, Oswyn. She knew a moment of blinding relief that the boy did not appear crippled - the injuries looked days old, and had been treated. A moment later the other details of his appearance struck her. The boy's face was chalky - not physically battered but haggard, a deathmask. The eyes were faraway as Irminric's had been, but while the Templar's had been glimmering and brilliant with visions, this boy's were dark pits from which the intelligence had been burned out. He was half-slumped, unable to lift his weight off the ground. A small caked pool of blood marked the stone between his feet. Howe and his men had strange tastes. He looked as Shianni had done when Rilian had rescued her from Vaughan.

Purely on instinct, as Jowan and Arvall came over to help - Jowan with healing and Arvall in helping the boy into the second guard's uniform - Rilian began to tell him of that rescue: of how Shianni had defied captors and slavers to save their people; of how she had been recruited to join the Wardens. "... Duncan said I was needed to help defeat the darkspawn. He trusted me - an Elf, an escaped prisoner - and taught me not only how to fight, but why. I didn't know anything about Grey Wardens except that they once rode on griffins, but he gave me the chance to make myself more than I ever dreamed I could be. He said we were none of us white knights - most of us had committed or suffered violence - but on that foundation we built an ideal: protect people; stop the Blight..." The boy was still, unresponsive. He obeyed Arvall's instructions - seemed to function in this world, but he lived in the Fade. She tried to tell herself there was a new firmness to his steps when she finished, but she wasn't certain.

Arvall put a hand on her shoulder. "I would thank you for my life - but seeing as you're the one who put it in danger in the first place I'd say we were even," he said gruffly.

Rilian found a tight grin. "Yes - but I'm the one who took out Howe."

"Humph - you may be good for something besides trouble, Elf."

"We need to get out of here, ser - but one of your men told me there's thirty guards up top: will they obey you, or fight us?"

"I wouldn't chance their loyalty to me - but once they hear of the Arl's untimely death they might be persuaded. But when Thomas Howe gets here with the Amaranthine levies - that's another story. Our safest bet is to go to the Queen."

"I can get us in," Jowan said, voice shaking just a little, "They trust me - and with you two in uniform, and you, Warden, as the prisoner: it might work. But Rilian - you'll have to lose the sword..."

Rilian nodded reluctantly and regretfully removed sword and chainshirt. Together, with Jowan in the lead and Arvall and Oswyn flanking her, the four headed out of the chamber for the stairs. Oswyn followed without question - some part of him aware of what they were doing. When they got to the top of the stairs and passed the guards at the double doors, a cold hand squeezed her heart. They could take the two - but not before they gave the alarm. But the men expected her to be returned to her chamber. Apparently it was not unusual for Howe to remain below during night hours. The walk to the Queen's chamber seemed interminably long, down a maze of side-passages. It was on the main floor, to the south-west, on the opposite side of the estate to the dungeon entrance. Only one guard asked questions: and he was the sandy-haired, nervous youth stationed outside the Queen's room. He stared at the four surprise visitors, muddy-brown eyes wide.

"S...Ser," he stammered, "No visitors allowed without the Arl's permission."

"Son," Captain Arvall said kindly - the lad's eyes widened even further at the familiar gravelly voice - "The mage and I have permission from the Arl."

The boy hesitated. Beads of sweat stood out on his lower lip, above his sparse, wispy attempt at a beard. He didn't want to offend the Arl if the Captain were telling the truth - but what if the Arl were only testing him? He knew what his life would be worth if the Arl was displeased. And hadn't Sergeant Loren said the Captain was a traitor? He didn't want to believe that - not of the man who'd trained him - but the Sergeant was a frightening man... He was so lost in his troubles he didn't even notice as Arvall stepped forward and hit him with the flat of his blade, with no more force than necessary to knock him out. Soundlessly, he crumpled, and the Captain eased him to the ground. In another moment Jowan had dissolved the wards on the door -and then Rilian blinked as it was opened, full wide, from the inside.

Queen Anora faced them, dressed in silver armour, a slender sword at her hip. Her entire body was taut like spring steel. Arl Howe would not have dared harm her - yet - but how many days had she lived in this tension, waiting for Howe to remove her only protection - Loghain - or simply decide to force the marriage, counting on shame and a noblewoman's discretion to keep her silent? She thought of Cyrion - a protective tiger beneath the stooped shoulders and shaking hands - and wondered what kind of father would inflict that on his child, even if he believed it necessary for the country. Anora's fine pale hair - hair like light - was drawn back in two tight buns; her skin so pale it seemed almost luminous. Her eyes were the strangely ominous colour of glacial ice. Rilian glanced at the sword at her hip and wondered if she had any skill with it. She would have thought not - from her experience of Lady Habren and Arlessa Isolde it seemed all noblewomen did was knit lace and screech orders - and the slender white hands were not those of a warrior. But Anora carried herself with a physical grace and confidence that suggested some training. Her voice was high and clear and brittle, like fine glass:

"We meet at last, Warden. I'm glad you put Myrtle's gift to good use. And Captain Arvall - I am glad to see you have survived the Arl's mistreatment."

For once, the normally laconic Captain stumbled over his words. Rilian was so startled she blinked. "You sent Myrtle to me on purpose - then you weren't really sleeping! You knew what the Arl meant to do - and what she meant to do..."

"Of course I did. That poor woman has suffered enough at the Arl's hands - and she is loyal to me as Erlina. Believe me - I would have spoken to my father had I any hope he might have listened. But I would only have succeeded in losing us the element of surprise."

Rilian said nothing, suddenly aware of danger. Surely Anora could not know about Erlina - if she did why keep her as a maid? She felt Oswyn's presence beside her and wanted to cry, _Can't you see what happened to him? He needs help!_ But even that had danger - whose side was Anora really on? Would she let such a witness escape, to ruin her father's reputation as much as Arl Howe's? She did not dare speak of Irminric - if Bann Sighard would seek revenge, the Chantry certainly would. Would Anora feel her own position compromised by Loghain's crimes?

"So," she said, more harshly than she intended, "Arl Howe is dead - just as you wanted, my Lady. But there are thirty guards on this floor who'll have me for the crime."

As she spoke she wondered why the Queen would even care. Her unwanted, predatory suitor - the man who had schemed to assassinate her father and use her as a path to the throne - was dead. Why care if a mere Elf paid for the crime? Anora answered her doubts with action. So fast she seemed a spark of living lightning, she organized Arvall, Rilian and herself to round up the guards - a swift, bloodless coup that resulted in them swearing allegiance to their Queen. The choice was simple: the Arl was dead, the Teyrn absent, and Anora - the highest authority figure they had - was here. Sergeant Loren - bull-like and brutal but reliant on Howe and Loghain for authority - wavered, and in that moment lost his men to Anora's certainty. He ended up in a dungeon cell. The other guards - including the nervous sandy-haired boy - were allowed to continue their duties under their new leader. Anora tore through the halls, organizing, directing, commanding. Rilian's fear raised its head again, twisting like a snake, when she saw the Queen studying Oswyn's blank face, the calculations running behind her eyes so clearly they were almost legible. She was startled when the Queen gave Oswyn a chamber not far from her own and summoned Myrtle to take care of him. It made her question her initial impression of Anora as a woman of steely competence but no heart. Or had her choice of a woman who had lost five children to look after a boy who had suffered horrors been mere co-incidence, an expedient use of a superfluous Elven servant? Rilian didn't know - just as she wasn't sure whether the Queen knew Oswyn's identity or not. At last, when Captain Arvall was organising nightwatch downstairs, and Jowan retreated to the sanctuary of his own chambers, Anora invited Rilian to speak with her in private. Rilian was surprised the Queen summoned no guards or servants - Anora didn't know anything about her - but then, Anora was armed and she was not.

The Queen led her into a large L-shaped room, its solid, heavy lines softened and muted by the rose light that streamed from an oil lamp behind a pane of red glass. Along the polished wood of the floor was a green-and-pink rug, curled in intricate patterns of roses and thorns. The bed was quite a simple affair - her own guest-chamber had a bigger one - but the room was dominated by a large writing desk. On it were curled missives, scrolls - and a board of black-and-white squares dotted with small, stylised wooden soldiers. One side was quite plain - and the front row of pieces were mabaris! The other wore fancy plumes. It looked like a game played by two sides - but Anora had been playing both. She followed Rilian's gaze, and something in her look conveyed the impression that the set-up had a meaning beyond pastime. She turned back to face her, the rose lamp at her back. Her face was in shadow now, lit only by the moonlight that streamed from the narrow window; with the strange result that she looked brighter, keener, sharp as a silver blade.

"You are a remarkable woman, Warden," she said, "If even half the tales are true. To defeat the Arl and his guards with no more than a kitchen knife..."

Impatient with what she saw as more lying noble's flattery, Rilian gave an indelicate snort. "You have Jowan to thank, not me. Without his help, I'd be dead. Or wishing I were." Her head came up; she met the Queen's diamond gaze with a direct, fiery stare that threw everything she saw into sharp relief. "I'm going to conscript him."

Thoughtfully, Anora nodded. "You see - you are the stronger. A Queen cannot oppose the Chantry who must bless her right to rule. As a Warden, you can do what I would not dare."

"I'm an ordinary woman, my Lady," Rilian said bitterly, "From your own Alienage. An Elf in the wrong place at the wrong time."

The Queen did not seem surprised. Rilian guessed that if Arl Eamon and Ser Cauthrien knew the story, Anora must too. But she did not react in any of the obvious ways. Her vivid eyes held no anger at the murder of a Bann she must have known, no scorn, no womanly sympathy. Their glance went through Rilian, not in disinterest but as though she had triggered a wide range of abstract ideas, and fixed itself on something behind her, some set of possibilities she cast like a shadow. The impression was so strong Rilian had to fight not to look around, half-expecting to find someone at her back.

"Nonetheless, your story is amazing to me. It seems to prove my late husband's romantic notions correct. Poor Cailan always loved the tale of King Maric's meeting with my father. He considered it proof that into any ordinary life a door of adventure might open, offering the least Ferelden citizen an opportunity for greatness." Her voice softened and muted; a shadow crossed her face. An instant later all that was banished; she regained control of voice and features and forced them to serve her. "_I_ consider that people are as ordinary or exceptional as they choose to be. Oh, I am assured that no-one can conceive a talent for magic or the Dwarven stone-sense by act of will" - she didn't sound entirely convinced - "and it is true that Ferelden is a warrior's world, where a woman must oppose the arrogance of men in order to prove herself. Yet I believe that in the end I am limited only by the limits of my own determination, not by accidents of bloodline or preconceptions of gender."

This view of her rise to power - and Loghain's - as "romantic" struck Rilian as so poignant - and so mistaken - that she was startled to find herself on the verge of tears. She had risen over Nelaros' death and Shianni's pain. If she could she would have turned back time - sent Duncan elsewhere to open the door for a different Warden, a stranger - to save them. She wondered, suddenly, about that chance meeting with King Maric in Loghain's life, and what the cost had been. Had Loghain followed him simply because he needed him to be worth that price, and would he have undone it if he could? If anything, Anora's ideas seemed less realistic than Cailan's, rather than more. What could the Queen know of the traps of racism and grinding poverty - of how much determination it took for people like Cyrion and Goldanna simply to survive one more day, keep their children fed and clothed and their families afloat?

"The only way for people like me to rise is through disaster," she said flatly, thinking of Nelaros' words. "The determination comes afterwards - to make steel of ourselves or break. There is no fairytale."

Rilian shivered. All she wanted was to drink until she drove the cold from her bones and blotted out the memory of Howe's hands, his touch, the snaking fingers of magic. She turned away from the Queen and faced the wall with the window. To its right was an unlit grate, filled with coals like rotten teeth: the open shadowy maw of some beast. In front was a black velvet armchair. Its ornate heaviness seemed curiously ominous, an unpredictable creature crouching in the dimness. Next to the window on the other side was a high, spindly wooden structure that Rilian took to be some kind of clothes rack - until she saw the canvas stretched between two poles. A map, she thought - until she squinted at the fine, unnaturally straight lines and made out a shape that seemed to blend the sleek sharpness of an arrowhead with the delicacy of a bird in flight. In the shadows it was strange, and spoke of hidden possibilities. Outside, the moon seemed poised like a blade amid the silver veils of clouds. The sharp wetness across her cheek was starting to resemble pain, her skin burned and crawled. Absently, Rilian touched it. Her cracked and dirty fingertips came away with dried blood. I must look awful, she realised vaguely.

Anora said nothing - but Rilian heard the delicate chime of a bell as she rang for a servant. Then the clink and scrape of armour as she passed Rilian, knelt, and began to stoke the fire. When the boy arrived Rilian saw he was not a servant but the sandy-haired young guard whom Arvall had struck. A growing bruise marked the side of his face like a dark-veined spiderweb. He looked like he would rather be anywhere but here. Rilian tried to smile reassuringly. It was a sickly effort, like a fracture in a porcelain vase, and she felt the dried blood crack along her cheek. He flinched and looked away quickly. Distantly, she heard Anora call for a pitcher of wine. She reached a hand up to her hair: a matted bird's nest. Jowan's spell had speeded her healing up considerably, but she felt the throb of bruises under her face's skin, a patchwork of numbness and pain.

Anora got the fire lit, and instantly the character of the room changed. Golden flames warred with the room's shadows in a dance of shifting ambiguity, blurred harsh lines to a shimmering dreamlike haze. The hulking black velvet armchair brightened to soft, inviting scarlet. Rilian's limbs felt boneless as water as Anora put a hand on her shoulder and guided her into it. She stared into the fire as Anora shifted and moved away towards the hidden part of the L shaped room. The flames were oddly entrancing. She stared into them as though they might hypnotize her into forgetting everything. Anora returned with a damp towel. Rilian was startled when she began dabbing the cut gently, washing blood and dirt away from the wound. After studying it for a moment, the Queen pronounced, "There - it's clean. It still bleeds a little, but that only serves to wash out infection. It is only as long as my finger, and rather delicate. When it heals, you will have a fine, straight scar. I do not think it will mar your face."

Rilian wondered a little at her own dismay. She _knew_ Alistair would not find it ugly, and since when had she been ashamed of scars? Only - it would have felt different had it been a battle injury. There was something both ridiculous and shameful about a fall across a cabinet, being chased by a man intent on rape, and she wished she could hide it the way Alarith covered his Tevinter brand.

At that moment the young guard returned with the wine and two crystal glasses. Anora poured with practiced grace, and Rilian watched the flow of the rich red smoothness, the way it swirled within the glass..._a watery whirlpool, a dark, spiralling vortex_... Anora's shadow fell over it as she extended the glass... _Fat bubbles crawled along the surface of the glistening black liquid_... Rilian's stomach clenched but she shut her eyes and took a longer draught than good manners or wisdom suggested. Despite her nausea, the wine began to work magic along her bones, pulsing like liquid sunlight through chill veins. Rilian looked up from the red-and-gold dance and saw the way the heat-shimmer brought the canvas to life. The silver tracery, delicate as the wings of a moth, took on movement and freedom, called up her dream of flight.

"What is it, my Lady?"

A faint flush stained the pale face, delicate as a pink pearl. "I have been held here a week, with nothing to do but plan my outfit for the day. I suspect my imagination has been overactive. I call it a glider."

Ignoring dizziness, Rilian stood up, uncaring of the way the liquid sloshed in the glass. Golden eyes narrowed as she studied the diagram intently, seeing dreams, possibilities - pragmatism...

"But this will not fly like a bird," she said, with a strange, hollow ache of disappointment, "For there is no power in the wings. And the middle is too heavy."

"Have you ever watched a bumblebee in flight?" asked Anora inexplicably. "No? Well, I'll show you something."

She went to the desk and picked up a blank piece of parchment. It was a valuable thing, Rilian thought - paper to write on had been the hardest thing to come by in Mother Boann's school - so she was startled when Anora folded one corner over in a diagonal line. She folded the other corner, then the first again in a long, clean line. She mirrored this again, then folded both sides back and over. All at once the ordinary piece of parchment came alive in the deft, careful hands: a tiny, fragile, living version of the diagram. The silver-armoured woman walked to the window, and Rilian followed. The shape was an arrow-slit, but through the rounder middle part she could see the estate's ornate garden. Shadowy oblong sentinels formed a grim spiral around a flat glistening blackness. The moon and stars were caught within. Faint ripples stirred, visible only as an occasional tremor that changed the clean brightness of reflection to something obscured and distorted. One hand pushed the paper bird through the gap; a flick of the wrist sent it into the night. Rilian rushed to the window as Anora withdrew, and craned her head to look. She expected to see the poor, wingless creature flutter to the ground like a handkerchief dropped by a captive princess to a questing suitor. Instead the parchment caught a gust like a white-winged ship sailing on air. It curved as cleanly as the steel dances of her own sword, gliding disdainfully past the hulking armoured sentinels, which resolved into mere fir trees in its wake. Rilian felt light as air as she watched the pale arrowhead vanish beyond her line of sight. She turned, full of wonder, alight with possibilities.

"They say the Wardens flew on griffins once," she said softly, "This may be the next best thing - there's a lot of high points within the city!" Realism nipped the heels of enthusiasm. "Of course - we don't have time."

A startled expression touched the pale face. Something moved in the Queen's eyes, a swirl that disappeared before she could be sure of it, but it left her thinking of a child discovering an unexpected gift. Rilian, who took for granted the understanding of family and peers, wondered at it. At once the expression shifted, without really moving at all, to a touch of dry humour.

"You think of warfare. I was thinking of messages, communications. In any case, I suspect the military uses to be somewhat limited. Father teased me when he saw it."

"Perhaps that is because he sees the world only in terms of the past," Rilian blurted. She nearly added, _Is that what the university is for?_ before her own carelessness appalled her. She didn't want to say anything of her conversation with Erlina. Steering clear of dangerous ground, she said instead: "But I think learning is not just history but the future."

Anora's smile was bright and spontaneous as the sparks that leapt from the grate. "Warden," she said softly, "You amaze me. Is this what being ordinary means in the Alienage? Your world must be braver than mine."

The words - and her own treacherous spark of pleasure - sent a ripple of irritation through Rilian. Why should it surprise the Queen to hear an Elf talk of learning or the future? No doubt because she, like all her kind, assumed that in a human world they had neither. Bristling, she said nothing.

Alerted to the change in mood, Anora turned - not insulted but gracefully neutral - and moved away to rinse out the towel. She returned with a hairbrush and a delicate gold mirror. Rilian took them without comment. Staring into the silvery glass, she no longer wondered at the guard's expression. She looked like something out of a darkspawn lair. A seething array of mottled bruises swirled under her skin like incipient stormclouds. The cut was a thin scarlet ribbon, running from the corner of her mouth to her cheekbone. Thanks to Anora, her face was clean, but caked blood disappeared into hairline and neck.

"Don't worry," Anora reassured her, "A heated bath will do wonders - you must choose one of my dresses - and make-up will disguise the damage. I have a wonderful cream - a present from Erlina. It is popular in the Orlesian court, though a trifle mask-like. Think of it as women's warpaint. Although," she added, "your appearance would at least serve to convince my father we were telling the truth."

Rilian shook her head: a visceral, instinctive movement.

"I understand. I never use weakness as an argument either." Some trick of the candlelight brightened her eyes; they glimmered and seemed full, as though the colour might spill over. "Perhaps Cailan might have listened if I had." Rilian was only half-sure of the last words: they seemed to float in the air, softer than the streams of rose light. But a moment later the character of her face changed so completely it was as if the delicate bones were shifting. Like the shadow of a bird in flight, Rilian saw the set of Loghain's face on Anora's: hard, cool, implacable. A spark of intuition told her the resemblance would be greater outdoors - candlelight blurred and distorted lines of fierce, uncompromising steel to mere beauty.

"In any case it does not matter what my father believes. Let him think the Arl a victim of our ambition: Rendon Howe is dead and we are here, and he must work with us." Blue eyes glinted from paled features. Her voice was hard as the ground and, though light and thin as crystal compared to Loghain's gravelly growl, carried the same heavy darkness of conviction. "He sent Erlina to you because he had no option but to join forces after you stopped the trade with Tevinter. You would not be here had you not agreed to that alliance. And my father will need me to break Arl Eamon's stalemate. That man has used the Blight to play for the throne - and now the Bannorn drink and play cards in the Gnawed Noble tavern while the horde masses on our doorstep." Anora was too well-bred to curl her lip - but her eyes went flat and cool as a hunting hawk's. "I expect my father to task me with making the Banns see reason."

Rilian caught her breath. Anora had not been there - but she was correct in every detail. Sheer, cold logic had taken the place of knowledge. In the moonlight, her eyes were luminous with it.

"No," Anora said flatly, "my father will not be asking questions but answering them - if Bann Sighard and the Chantry discover what Arl Howe has done."

Shock flashed through Rilian. How did - ? Trying to cover her reaction, she jerked to her feet, went to the wine decanter and - too flustered to even think about manners - refilled her glass up to the brim. Suddenly the whole room felt threatening, as though the walls were transparent and the floor might yawn open. Anora had made her think, made her dream: the glider, the university... They could not touch her heart the way Alistair's compassion had done, but they fired her imagination. That, and the glimpses of odd vulnerability, had lulled her into an insane sense of safety. She was furious with herself for forgetting - if only for a moment - who she was dealing with: nobility, bred to deceit and mastery. Loghain's daughter. Anora might very well be capable of murdering Oswyn and Irminric in order to preserve her father's reputation. And how much did she know of her conversation with Erlina? It seemed impossible that Anora could _not_ know her maid's secret - yet how could Rilian protect Erlina without giving her away?

"But I have a question for you, Warden." The electricity of her gaze made Rilian shiver. "Did you come here tonight only because my father threatened your people? Or do you truly wish to save lives by this alliance?"

Rilian's answer was simple - the meaning behind the question was not. She knew as well as Anora that the outrage over what had been done to Oswyn and Ser Irminric was a gift to Arl Eamon - that it might very well destroy both Loghain and the alliance.

Unexpectedly, Rilian found she had reached her limit. Sharp, lightning flashes of memory: Arl Howe's fingers, finding points that radiated spikes of pain - Oswyn's void eyes, empty of everything but horror - the hopeless suffering of Rexel and the bitter torment of the old man - collapsed inward into searing rage. Arl Howe's sadism - Loghain's willingness to turn a blind eye to it - Anora's political manoeuvring. All of them: sick with arrogance, perfectly willing to murder and manipulate in the belief that they had the right, that only they could save Ferelden. Distantly - the thought seemed to float on a haze of wine and firelight - she wondered why she cared so much for the fate of two unknown shem nobles: but she thought of Adaia and Shianni and felt the same sickness curdle her stomach, the same helpless fury.

Deliberately, she turned and faced Anora, the heat of her golden eyes seeking to bore a hole in that marble, poker face to the secrets within. For several long breaths, the two women held each other in unyielding grips of sheer will. Small, excited blood vessels writhed in tight, scrawling messages of tension.

"Do I wish to save lives with this alliance: yes. Would I help Arl Eamon use their suffering for political gain: no." Rilian took a step forward, unconsciously, the pressure of her conviction forcing her closer. "Will I help you hide Arl Howe's crimes to protect Teyrn Loghain's reputation - even to save the alliance: no." Even as she spoke Rilian knew a moment of despair. Anora held all the power and all the cards - Captain Arvall answered to her. If she meant to make the witnesses disappear Rilian could not stop her. And then it would be her word against the Queen's.

Without actually looking away from her - Rilian wasn't sure how she did it - Anora suddenly deflected the contest: drew shadows and moonlight around the stark granite of her expression like a veil. The change spoke of calculations, of hidden thought, just as a river's sparkling waves kept its depths unknown.

"Warden," she said quietly, "I am not my father. I do not murder innocents for what I believe to be the good of Ferelden. I am not asking you to help me conceal these crimes, only to mitigate their consequences: convince Bann Sighard and the Chantry to put vengeance aside until the Blight is defeated. Afterwards - that depends on you."

There was something in Anora's tone - particularly in her last words - that hovered at the edges of Rilian's mind. She turned away to watch the erratic dance of shadows and firelight. Sometimes the light won - hissing upwards in a shower of bold sparks. But then the shadows curled around them like smoke. Everything shifting - hiding and then reappearing. Mere streets separated her from home - yet the world where friends and enemies were clearly identified could have been miles away. Now the distinction was a hazy, treacherous line that could create a picture as deceptive and dangerous as a mirage. Anora's motives were a mystery to her - what she said might have nothing to do with what she really wanted. Yet somehow - she could not have said why - Rilian knew she was not lying. Memory and logic were shattered, scattered - Rilian tried to pick up the pieces, tried to build a coherent picture - to _think..._ Even if she reassured Anora she could not prove her intentions. Anora's safest bet would be to leave the prisoners here until the meeting with the Banns was over. But that would be a death sentence - Loghain would be here tomorrow morning. Yet if Anora let them go tonight she would need some other leverage. Images of her people scratched at her brain like a cat sharpening its claws. No, she thought confusedly, that wouldn't work: Arl Eamon had said the Crown had no authority over the Alienage. Then in a sudden flood of icy terror she remembered Thomas Howe...

Having no answers - no strength left to pursue the questions - Rilian turned back. "My lady," she said wearily, "I have every intention of honouring the alliance. We need the Teyrn - _I_ need him - to save Denerim. My community is here - the families of those I care about. He promised a strategy to save the city - meet the horde outside Denerim - if only we can convince the Banns. I'd never jeopardise that for Arl Eamon's agenda - not even to put Alistair on the throne. I don't know how to prove it to you. But I ask you to let Oswyn and Ser - the Templar go."

"You know his name." A sudden spike of alarm flared in Rilian. But really - the Chantry held more power than any Bann: his identity hardly made a difference.

"It will help in writing messages," the Queen said dryly. "I believe you, Warden. I will send for Bann Sighard and a representative of the Chantry tonight."

Hardly knowing what to think, Rilian said softly, "His name is Ser Irminric. He asked for his sister, Alfstanna. He gave me this."

The signet ring winked in the candlelight. The Queen's feathery eyebrows drew together like the uplifted wings of a pale eagle. "Not only a Templar but the brother of Bann Alfstanna. Like Bann Sighard, one of my father's staunchest allies. Really, if Arl Howe had set out to ruin him he could hardly have done a better job."

Rilian moved to stand beside her as the Queen settled herself into the chair by the writing desk and began to pen the notes. The messages were like her handwriting: spare, lucid, and to the point. Memory flashed across her mind: treasured lessons with Mother Boann - her struggles with quill and ink - her torturous, spidery scrawls...

"Well - the charter gives control of the city to the Arl of Denerim - he can imprison anyone he likes without reference to the Crown," Rilian said idly as she read over the Queen's shoulder, only half-thinking. "I suppose Howe thought he was untouchable."

To her surprise, the Queen turned sharply - looking at her intently as though she had made a valid point. "Indeed - and that may save my father."

Rilian stiffened. "He's been to the dungeons - he had to have known!" _He had the Orlesian Warden taken to the upstairs rooms, _she nearly added - and could have bitten off her tongue.

Cursing her own carelessness - avoiding Anora's probing gaze - Rilian went silent.

"Warden," Anora said, lips curved in a small smile and eyes blue-bright as ice, "In politics what is _believed_ is reality."

"But that - that's wrong!" Rilian scowled in frustration - keenly aware that she had no intention of betraying Loghain; her need for justice and her need to honour their alliance at each other's throats. "Well - he can't hide from the Maker's justice!" And that was her father's voice, after Adaia's death: the helpless wail for divine justice from those who could expect none on earth. Rilian clamped her mouth shut over the echo. Anora was watching her with an unreadable expression.

"Besides," Rilian added thoughtfully, "I don't think the Teyrn will claim he didn't know. He's a soldier: it happened on his watch. He'll try to justify it as being for the good of the country - but he won't hide from men who never shed blood for Ferelden."

"Really?" Anora arched a pale eyebrow, "_You _think? You have met him once - and I have known him all my life..." A slight edge to her voice called up the ghost of a younger Rilian: a lanky teenager, all elbows and feet, scowling in a doorway while Cyrion taught Shianni to cook, watching her cousin sculpt pastries in the perfect image of his own. He had long since given up teaching her... But Anora drew herself up with an aloof dignity Rilian could never have managed and said quietly, "No - you may know better than I indeed."

By the time Anora had written the messages and sent Captain Arvall to the Gnawed Noble, Rilian's exhaustion was so complete it covered her like a cold shroud, tightening and tightening till it squeezed her like a vise. Her bruises were a bitter bone-deep ache. She was still standing by the desk but had turned away towards the fire. The flickering warmth could almost convince her the chilling vision of Thomas Howe's approach was distant, unimportant...

She didn't realise Anora was talking until the Queen touched her shoulder - briefly and lightly as the flutter of a moth. Her words were an echo of Rilian's inner voice:

"Warden, I know that your fears for Oswyn and Ser Irminric were not the whole story. It is tempting to think that our reasons for fear become less if we do not think about them - but you and I both know that the reverse is true. We can only lessen danger by acknowledging it and acting against it."

Anora's fingers were steepled in front of her. It was as if she pulled Rilian's words out with those slim, wraith hands. Their implications were horrifying:

"Captain Arvall told me Thomas Howe is headed towards Denerim with two-hundred reinforcements. He's Arl of Denerim now. He'll have jurisdiction over my people."

Anora did not seem surprised. There seemed to be little she didn't already know from her informants, despite her imprisonment. Distinctly, like an avowal of faith, she said, "Then you must let me protect them."

Rilian was so startled she stared.

Anora opened the desk drawer. Rilian saw correspondence folded in precise rows, neat and organised as battlefield divisions. She saw the clean lines of the Legion, more uniform than any human troops could be, bristling with weapons like a hedgehog. She blinked away the image. What Anora showed her was the new city charter she had drawn up - the one Erlina had spoken of - that showed the Capital under jurisdiction of the Crown and the Arl's estate a seat of learning.

"I see you understand the significance - yet you do not seem surprised."

"No, I - I am," Rilian said quickly.

"Hmm. As you see, I have had this in my head for some time. What I had not planned - but would be willing to grant - would be autonomy to the Elven Alienage: its own laws; its own Bann."

The possibility exploded through Rilian like a dance of radiant colour. The lifting of that oppression would be like coming up from a life lived under dim grey water to the world in brilliant sunshine. Then Anora's next words fractured her joy like ice-splinters.

"To do this I must declare Arl Rendon Howe a traitor: must oppose his son, who is now Teyrn of Highever, Arl of Amaranthine, and Arl of Denerim. Queens have been destroyed for far less."

"You and the Teyrn could commandeer those forces!" Rilian blurted.

"I do not speak of the campaign but of the Landsmeet afterwards. The Howe family hold the allegiance of more Banns than any other. Why do you suppose my father was forced to ally with Rendon Howe? I can only do this if I may count on your support, Warden."

The words went through Rilian like slow ice; their meaning was a punch to the gut. She turned away - a quick, almost uncontrolled movement - and strode across the room. _This_ was why Anora could afford to trust her over Oswyn and Irminric! Rilian had thought of Thomas Howe but had been too stupid to see the implication - that Anora's power did not lie in threatening her people but in being the only one who could save them. And because Rilian had trusted her, she had given away her only bargaining chip - Anora knew she cared as much for the alliance as Loghain did. Slowly, she sank into the chair. Though she wanted to think clearly - needed to think clearly - her thoughts were fragments, spinning away from her. She groped for argument, but knew Anora was too cunning for her. A slow pulse of anger rescued her, pounding in her veins and chasing away exhaustion like cold fire, till finally, in a rumbling, chilling tone of its own, it broke free:

"Vaughan Urien tried to buy me with forty silver and a threat to my community. The cost would have been my cousin, Shianni. Now you try the same - and the cost will be Alistair. You want me to betray him at the Landsmeet."

Anora drew back her shoulders, straightened her spine. Firelight glittered across her armour; she seemed ablaze in darkly-sparkling jewels. She looked regal and certain, like a woman who is within her rights.

"Is that not what you have already done by coming here? Arl Eamon was going to use our need for your forces to strong-arm the Bannorn and you have cut that ground from under him."

"It's not the same. I may have levelled the field. I won't work against him."

"Warden - do you not see that Arl Eamon cannot win on a level playing field? That Alistair's only advantages are his bloodline and my father's crimes - which, after he has helped us defeat the Blight, will seem that much less important? Do you think that will outweigh the threat of a ruler who takes his orders from Weisshaupt? Or of Arl Eamon's correspondence with the Empress of Orlais?"

Rilian felt the blood drain from her face.

"Warden - do you think I am unaware of Erlina's circumstances? No - do not worry," she added quickly. Her vivid eyes softened imperceptibly. "I would not punish a woman for doing her best to feed her family. Better a spy I know about than one I do not. I can control the flow of information - and, as you see, it works both ways."

_... Since then, my life is lies. And threats. I use them all: the Queen, Arl Howe, Arl Eamon. One protects against another ..._

"So you see - I hold Arl Eamon's doom in my hands: these letters will ruin him." Rilian cared not at all for Arl Eamon's well-deserved fall - but for Alistair's sake the words were a blade in her heart. "And do you think," the Queen finished almost gently, "That after I make them public the Bannorn will hand power to a boy who was never formally acknowledged and who - if the rumours are true - knows no more of kingship than my own stablehand?"

When Rilian started out of the chair Anora waved her back, almost negligently. "Never attack the truth - and never forget that ambition always finds reasons to justify its actions."

"I don't give a rat's arse for Arl Eamon's ambition," Rilian grated out, so angry she lapsed unconsciously into the slang of her childhood. "I support Alistair for what he is, in himself. You talk of learning, of progress, of trade - but you are like Teyrn Loghain: you think your goals are more important than individuals. The only people in your university will be those who can afford not to work. The only people who benefit from trade will be traders. The rich will get richer and the nobles will get more educated - and for the rest of us you won't change a damn thing. I support Alistair for his justice, his compassion."

"So - no mere thoughtless bundle of emotions; and not just a woman wishing to crown her personal Prince. I wonder, Warden, what you would say to my suggestion of a political marriage between Alistair and I? Once Arl Eamon is safely out of the way Alistair may prove a good counterweight. And if I do oppose Thomas Howe and - others - I may need a male defender."

"Who are you - _what_ is he - that you make him a possession? I hand Alistair over to you like a - a _chattel_ - and in exchange you save my people? How dare you!"

Anora stepped forward. A streak of firelight caught her face, so that her usual paleness was covered by an orange-gold blush. The flame burned in her eyes, turning them from the blue-brightness of ice to Rilian's hot amber. She seemed an entirely different woman: direct and candid.

"Warden," she said, her words and their precise diction very calm, very cold, "You mistake me twice. I do not ask you to betray Alistair. I do not ask you to "hand him over". I am telling you what _I_ mean to do. I am offering you a challenge."

Rilian felt almost as though a chain binding her to a world she neither liked nor understood was suddenly broken. Out of everything that had been said, here, at last, was something she knew how to handle. Her own community was rife with such challenges: mother to daughter-in-law - sister to sister - woman to woman. Unexpectedly, Rilian almost grinned. Then Anora stepped backwards, just slightly, so that the shadows distorted her, and Rilian had to bite her lip to keep from reaching forward and physically dragging her back into the light.

"Or a compromise. Alistair would not be the first Theirin man to take an Elven mistress."

Rilian blinked. No Alienage woman would tolerate such a thing. The history of her community was rife with tales of wives' vengeance on mistresses and hapless husbands - the stories were the colour of local evenings, retold and embellished till the best became legendary. Baffled and contemptuous, she glared at Anora, head cocked as though trying to understand her.

"And you would accept that? A husband who is a political tool, whose affections lie elsewhere. How can you live that way? Can you be happy?"

"Warden - I am my mind, my plans, my goals. I am Queen to my beloved Ferelden. My identity does not lie in the affections of my husband. I have never invested myself in that, or hoped for that kind of happiness."

Rilian stamped on her own tiny seedlings of understanding - of respect. Such happiness was all she had ever wanted and - thanks to Vaughan's cruelty - more than she would ever have. She could not help but see the words as scornful, feel herself being weighed and judged: a dull woman with her mind in her belly, whose ambitions stopped at husband and children and food on the table. Irritated with this fierce and bloodless intellectual who dismissed such things when Rilian mourned their loss - who would take _her_ Alistair as a mere pawn - she faced her, hands on hips and shoulders rounded forward, back arched to the very shape of One-Eyed Sal's: Soris' spiteful female cat.

"Families are more than happiness," she shot back, "The duty of a Queen is to bear children."

The arrow flown, Rilian relaxed as she felt her victory: in her community such an insult would have been unanswerable. Two faint spots of red did appear in Anora's cheeks, but her expression became very still, like stone.

"Warden, I was speaking of a political challenge - not a personal one."

Rilian wanted to curse the other woman's enigmatic smile that left her confused and somehow ashamed. She looked away.

"Actually, I believe that the children of dreams outlive the children of blood," she said quietly. "And Wardens can't bear children either. You could have thrown that back at me."

Anora regarded her with a very strange expression. Horrified to recognize sympathy and the beginnings of appreciation, Rilian quickly resumed the challenge:

"Alright: you don't need me to betray Alistair - or talk him into marriage. Politics is your theatre - your arena. So what use do you have for someone whose only talent is fighting and who - however temporarily - has the backing of an army? You've answered that, my lady. You said yourself that Ferelden is a warrior's world - or a General's. You said you might need a male defender to deal with Thomas Howe - and others. And you said that your father's crimes will seem that much less important after the Blight - or easily blamed on Arl Howe. I've heard the Teyrn intends to hand power back to you once the Blight is over - but you and I both know he isn't like that. He'll always see another threat - won't be able to help himself from keeping hold of the reins. He really believes it's best for the country - and for you."

Memories of Cyrion raced through her mind like tiny beads on a golden necklace: he had arranged her schooling with Mother Boann - her job with Lady Habren - even her marriage - and whether she had agreed or not she had always understood the love behind the meddling. Like all the fathers of her community, he had run her life - until the terrible day when that protection had been ripped away. The Teyrn persistently refused to remind her of her father - but still the memories lit a sudden distaste for Anora's plan. "_He's_ the man you want me to betray." Her lip curled. "You talked about your plans for education, invention, progress - and I almost believed you. But you could do all that as King Loghain's daughter - and it's still not enough! You're like all the other nobles: more interested in power than what the power is for." She wondered at her own stab of bitter disappointment. "Whatever the Teyrn has done he's still your father. That ought to make a difference."

Anora regarded her in silence, pale and austere. At once the bones of her face seemed to draw tight, as though she struggled under unseen pressure. For a moment, she looked a decade older. "I assure you, Warden," she said quietly, "That it makes every difference. You understand me so well I am sorry to see you understand me so little."

In taut silence, she walked to the desk, pulled out a missive stamped with an unfamiliar wax seal, and gave it into Rilian's hands.

_...To the Regent of Ferelden._

_You have murdered the Empress's finest chevaliers at the border of Gherlen's Pass - the very reinforcements sent to aid you. In addition, you have tortured and imprisoned Warden-Commander Riordan of Montsimmard. Neither the nation of Orlais nor the Order of the Grey will see these acts go unpunished. Due to your arrogance your land is already ravaged by the Blight. Now Ferelden will suffer for your crimes as well._

_Guillaume Caron,_

_Acting Warden-Commander of Montsimmard..._

"I find it strange," Anora murmured through Rilian's white-lipped shock, "That the Order only sent one Warden - and sent him straight to Arl Howe. Or rather - not so strange, considering how much Orlais stands to gain from using the Wardens as allies against Ferelden. Orlais will let the Blight finish us - and if we defeat it, will attack when we are weakest. And the sad thing is - I think my father almost welcomes the chance to defend Ferelden. It is the world he knows - the world of the rebellion - the best way he has to love his country. He tells me I must trust his ability to see Ferelden through this. The strange thing is, I do - but I also see the thirty years of learning, trade and progress we will lose along the way. My father will not even recognize the loss. So you see - I would never betray him for power: but I will do it for my country. I am my father's daughter."

The moonlight made her look wan, bloodless - but Rilian saw in that instant that she did indeed have a heart. The fingers that took Guillaume's missive were pale and urgent, and every line of her stance told Rilian she was mourning.

"I understand, my lady," Rilian said softly. She glanced down at the black-and-white squares, the tiny wooden pieces forever locked in combat, frozen in time. "But there is a reason you ask me, isn't there - instead of, say, Alistair. You said: every difference. You don't only want me to help you prevent this war - you want me to save your father's life." And Rilian was awed by how much Anora was willing to give. For this she would oppose the son of her father's most powerful ally - almost forcing herself into alliance with Alistair to gain the necessary support. And a cold slimy sensation of guilt crawled inside her at the knowledge she held back: that she would have helped Anora for nothing, because of her memories of Cyrion, because she could not bear to fight alongside Loghain and then betray him to his death.

When Vaughan had stolen her old life, the dream that had replaced it had been of fighting for her people - not making deals with nobility to save them.

_I'm not becoming like them - I may be letting Anora make an offer she doesn't need to, but I'm not lying._

_And what makes an open mouth that lies different from a closed one that hides the truth? _That was Shianni's voice: bracing, impatient with excuses.

_I _am_ becoming like them_, she admitted, half-ashamed, half-resigned. _I'm learning to use people. I use them _for _my people. _And she felt another silvery strand of understanding woven between her and the Queen.

"My lady," she said - because she would not lie about _this_ - "I think you may overestimate me. _How_ am I going to protect your father? Once he loses power, all his enemies will gather like vultures."

Anora managed a small smile. "I have spoken to you before about your power as a Warden: you can do what I would not dare."

Rilian's mouth dropped open."You want me to - _conscript_ him? I don't know how to...what I mean is: it would be insane to do it now, before the campaign - he might not make it. And afterwards - I might die. The Archdemon will probably do for me before I can keep my promise - or hold you to yours."

The thin, tense smile softened; became a quicksilver ripple of mingled sadness and amusement that changed the character of Anora's whole face, made her years younger. "If there is one thing my father taught me, it is that good strategies do not depend on individual lives - even one's own. You must task one of your community to assume the title of Bann - and recruit Wardens you trust to carry out your orders. On that subject - I would suggest you speak to this Riordan. I know," her voice hardened fractionally, "that he has every reason to hate my father - but if what I suspect is true he will have equal reason to hate Orlais. Meanwhile," Anora settled herself at her desk, and took her quill as fiercely as she had held her sword, "I shall write to every Bann in the city, inviting them here tomorrow. When my father arrives, Bann Sighard and Bann Alfstanna will already be here - and the others will soon follow. Even Arl Eamon, for fear of losing influence. Together, you and I shall forge this alliance." Her face was scored by icy courage - but a small, dry smile twitched her lips. "I'm sure Arl Howe would have been delighted to see his estate become - however briefly - the centre of Ferelden."

All at once Rilian felt more like herself than she had done since Arl Howe's work. A flash of her old spirit began to melt the frozen numbness: a resonance, a crackle and spark, a smile on the face of danger. Almost mischievous in her quick resurgence of exuberance and certainty, she playfully tossed back Anora's words about a Warden's power: "My lady," she said, in a feigned solemnity that spread into a brilliant cocky grin, "Where the Queen and the Warden are _is_ the centre of Ferelden."

Anora stared, startled - then all at once her controlled expression brightened into a rare, luminous smile. The two stared at each other a moment before Rilian took her leave, as though they had recognized each other at last.

_Author's note: sorry for the late update! And thank you to Arsinoe for the Orlesian plot - very, very fishy to send a single Warden straight to Howe, I agree! - and for Anora's planned city charter and location for the university._


	9. Chapter 9: The Landsmeet

_Author's note: I promised a last chapter re-cap. Rilian and Loghain have agreed to work together to save Denerim. Loghain, trusting Howe more than he should, has left both Rilian and Anora as guests in the Arl of Denerim's estate. Howe's men take Rilian in the night, and he has her tortured, planning to use Blood Magic to control her. He means to marry Anora, and use Rilian to assassinate Loghain at the right moment. Things do not go according to plan, and Rilian and Jowan kill Howe, escape, and free the rest of the prisoners. Anora and Rilian forge an alliance. Anora reveals an Orlesian plot, and offers to give the Alienage autonomy in exchange for Rilian protecting Loghain by making him a Warden._

Loghain woke before dawn. He had never been very good at resting - the strict urgency inside him kept him on his feet - and since Ostagar he'd managed only five hours sleep out of every twenty-four. As a young man, he'd had nightmares about the chevalier who had raped and tortured his mother with such relish and variety, before slitting her throat in front of him. Over the years the tenderness of Celia's companionship, and the clear worth of the work he did for his King, had taken the sting out of those dreams. Now both were dead - the one at sea, the other by a long hacking illness that cut her life out as effectively as a knife in her lungs - and now his sleep was void of dreams as black glass; a brief taste of eternity.

He rose, wearing only his nightshirt - contrary to popular belief, he did not actually sleep in armour. The servants had not been in to relight the fire: the room was an empty, uncoloured paleness, solid blocks of grey upon grey. He stoked the flames, and eventually the dull red glow lit the monochrome room in tones of blood and fire. He remembered the Warden's tale of the Deep Roads: running like rats through vast warrens, pressed in by centuries of stone, tunnels cocooned in glistening black webs of taint. She had spoken of orange rivers of lava that roiled beneath the dragon's perch, and he found himself thinking of what Denerim might look like in its wake, buildings charred to rust-coloured ash.

The russet glow flickered upon shadowy angles of wall, cupboard and desk, and seemed to give life to the room's personal touches: a chess set in which Loghain played both sides and out-fought tiny, frozen chevaliers in a thousand different ways - maps where paintings would have been. The largest and most intricate was a rarity these days. Most copies had been gleefully burned thirty years ago. The heat-shimmer ruddied the parchment and gave faint movement to the lines of occupied Ferelden: a promise, a warning. The wish to forget the past was nothing more than foolish sentiment; without its anchor, one would see the world the way the Banns did: a series of short-sighted squabbles over land and marriage and prestige, drowned in floods of self-importance and the ale served in the Gnawed Noble.

He did not see Ferelden solely in terms of borders to defend. As a boy, his family had worked the flat, fertile plains of the southern Bannorn: he still remembered the smell of cows and grass, the feel of a scythe handle as the blade bit into the stems. Ferelden had been the small community of plain, simple men who worked hard and talked little. The chevalier's cruelty had rent the fabric of that world and made exiles of Loghain and his father; replaced the familiar trusted faces with an alliance of unease: desperate men and elves whose only purpose was survival. At least, that was how Loghain had seen it. _...People can be more than they are, if they will try for it. It's in the worst of times that we need to cleave together the strongest... _Loghain had scoffed at the words, but he'd never forgotten them. And then Gareth had died - along with everyone he'd tried to protect - for a scruffy young prince, and Loghain had decided that Maric had damned well better be worth the sacrifice. The passions that had led to the freeing of Ferelden - the ideals that had inspired them - those things were the blood in his veins, the air in his chest.

Years later, Celia had woven that meaning into different cloth: a farmer's son and a cabinet-maker's daughter walking the streets of their Teyrnrir, the children of Gwaren born into freedom. The smell of pinewood and the sea, convivial evenings over ale and good food and long walks by the beach in which both he and Celia said little and were too contented to notice. But Celia had been dead these thirteen years - Farel was a better administrator than he would ever be - and he could not have returned to farming. Even if Maric had let him, it would not have been the field he knew from boyhood, the same faces beside him, his family around the table. For a moment, he saw himself and Celia in some cottage - Anora married to a man with more sense than Cailan - surrounded by children and grandchildren; then he blinked away the image, wondering at his own foolishness. He suspected he would have made a less than perfect grandfather anyway.

No, Maric had tasked him with defending Ferelden, and there was nothing he wouldn't do. It didn't matter that lately the purpose of his life had sprung leaks in all directions: the alliance with the Warden would take care of the schemes of Eamon and the dithering of the Banns. The Blight would not be allowed to choke Ferelden. He washed down in front of the small basin, and by the time he had dressed, his squire had arrived to help him into his armour. It fitted like a second skin; its weight an anchor. He recalled the Warden's quick-witted retort when he had scoffed at her ostentatious Dragonscale, his quiet smile reflecting the irony that he - an archer throughout the rebellion - should have spent the following thirty years stuffed into a chevalier's plate. His impulsive gesture after the Battle of River Dane had caught the imagination of the soldiers; the armour had become a talisman. Grudgingly, he conceded that the Warden's armour served the same purpose. He had never seen her fight - had no idea of her relative skill - but if she did nothing but show up at the head of their (joint!) forces looking like an Elven Andraste she would serve her purpose.

Loghain left the room and headed through winding corridors, chill and shadowed and just beginning to wake to the day's activity. The atmosphere was markedly different to the court of six months ago, noise and colour and life drained like blood from a wound. The whispers and rumours and intrigue had taken a darker air after Cailan's death - since Anora's unexplained absence they had died altogether. The unnatural stillness - the furtive, frozen fear - reminded him chillingly of the days of the occupation. _...Become what you hate in order to save what you love... _It was a relief to reach the kitchens - and the broad-shouldered woman who attacked a platter of bread and cheese with the single-mindedness of a fellow farmer and soldier. She looked up at him and nodded. "Ser."

"Cauthrien." He sat down beside her and helped himself to his own breakfast. Stress and fatigue robbed the food of taste, but it was fuel. They ate in comfortable silence - but when Cauthrien pushed her empty plate away he gave her a quick and precise run-down on all that had happened last night.

"And do you think the alliance will hold, ser? Once we deploy, you'll lose the immediate threat to the Alienage - how can you be sure the Warden will keep her word?" That long-boned, hawk-like face - a face most men were blind and stupid enough to call plain - was intense, her dark eyes seeking. He appreciated her candour - the one person he could violently disagree with yet trust completely.

"I cannot be certain," he admitted, "I do know this alliance spells the end for the ambitions of Eamon and his puppet prince. The Warden has no other allies - no option but to join with us to protect the Alienage from the horde. There is something else - something you need to know if I am killed. I trust no other with the information." Cauthrien listened in silence to his explanation of the need for a Warden to kill the Archdemon - and the Warden's ultimate fate. She knew, as well as he, that he could no more tell the Warden the truth than he could have told the King's men at Ostagar that they were doomed. It was not _that_ decision - a harsh but necessary fact of war - that made him grateful for the exhaustion that wrestled him into dreamless sleep. The aftertaste of Howe's wholly gratuitous sadism lingered like tainted food. He was ashamed of the sudden impulse to confide his orders to eliminate Oswyn before the story shattered the alliance - since when had she become Mother Cauthrien, his confessor? Oswyn - Cailan - the thousand men at Ostagar; he carried his dead with him, and that was as it should be.

"I am going to see my daughter - if anyone can convince the Banns, it is she."

"Let me come with you, ser."

Loghain considered. A soldier should always expect trouble - and Cauthrien was worth any ten guards. He nodded, and the two left the palace for the pre-dawn streets.

Denerim's blocky buildings pressed in on him: a patchwork of black upon grey that held up a sky like a silver shield. The capital was a dark, complex presence around him. Even after thirty years, the landscape was alien - he thought of the soft greens of rolling hills; golden light poured over newly-sown fields like wine. Today he felt the difference as a warning; inexplicably, as they neared Howe's estate, his gut tightened. His gut was seldom wrong. He paused, exactly like an old dog sniffing the air.

Cauthrien looked at him quizzically.

"In the days of the rebellion, dealing with the lickspittle Banns, Maric and I walked into so many unpleasant surprises I developed a nose for them. There'll be trouble."

"You left the estate locked tight barely six hours ago, ser. Arl Howe oversees the Alienage, that's all. I could predict trouble too - it might take a few weeks, but I'd be right eventually, wouldn't I?"

Loghain found a tight smile that acknowledged Cauthrien's point. The two said nothing further until they came to the towering gates. A young man he did not recognize stood watch - at the sight of him, his eyes went so wide Loghain could have sworn he'd seen a ghost.

"I am here to see Arl Howe."

The young soldier paled. "I...the Arl is...that is, I..."

"Just open the gate," Loghain said wearily.

"Yes, your grace," the boy stammered, almost past words. Loghain made a note to have a word with Howe about security. Everything about the approach was familiar: yellow light gleaming from the torch brackets that lined the walls - the high steel railings sharp as a rack of spears - the embossed double doors that swung open to the stone passage beyond. The great hall smelled of lamp oil, perfume and dust; the thick air melded with the orange light to become a heavy, soup-like haze. Banked coals glowed sullenly in the fire grate.

The single glaring difference stopped him in his tracks like a blow from a Dwarven hammer.

Arl Howe was nowhere to be seen. His daughter and the Warden faced him. Around the Hall, twenty guards formed a semi-circle like pawns around a trapped King, rough chainmail darkly-glimmering as oil. Captain Arvall, grizzled face haggard, met his eyes with a determination that couldn't hide nervousness, but refused to surrender to it. Anora had won their allegiance; he stood alone.

A wry, rueful voice, pitched for his ears alone, reached him: "Next time I'll listen to your gut feeling, ser. Say the word." Cauthrien stood ready to back him up without hesitation; she'd never flinched at unfavourable odds in all the years he'd known her. He didn't look around, but he felt the warmth of her loyalty like a physical touch.

"No - stand down," he ordered, and stepped forward. Anora matched him, cool and self-contained, her armour mirror-bright. She waved the Captain back: a gesture that said more clearly than words that this was her battle, to win or lose on her own strength. The Warden shadowed her, standing at her shoulder in unobtrusive, implacable support.

The last time Loghain had ever flinched from surprise had been the day the chevaliers invaded his family's farm-hold. As he strode towards them, he was smiling like a hawk, and only Maric - and perhaps Rowan - had ever known him well enough to realise this smile was a bad sign. To other people he probably looked like he was in his element, eager for the conflicts or disasters that would provide an outlet for his tension. Only his first love and his closest friend could have understood the particular ferocity of his grin.

"I expect," he grated out, "That you two will now inform me the Arl has met with a tragic accident." To himself, he chewed out a long furious curse - how could they have managed it? How _could_ Howe have been so careless!

A sudden incongruous awareness of the Warden's appearance floated though his outrage. He had never seen her look so unattractive. Her eyes were dull as stones - her heavily-painted face blank and dead as an Elven courtesan tending to her master's whims. In daylight - in the steel setting of her armour - she had a biting, sword-edge beauty as keen as the flash of blades. Her quick, mercurial energy and youthful idealism had blazed out of her. Now she was compacted down, and the pinched, hard-edged Elven features stood out starkly. He had the sudden intimation of how she might have looked, twenty years from now, had she remained in the gutter: that flat Elven stare, blade-thin mouth, prematurely aged face. Nonetheless, she met the remark with a shadow of her old spirit, lips curling in a slow, insolent grin:

"As tragic as the fate of the Couslands, ser - and as easily overlooked for the sake of the alliance."

He pointedly ignored her, turning toward the true source of the coup - for clearly the Warden had danced to Anora's tune as so many others before her. Standing together, they were outdoor and indoor versions of each other. The Warden's hair looked like rust in candlelight; flame in sunshine. Her eyes seemed suited to peering across distances; Anora's to penetrating the meanings hidden in shadows and conversations. Stark sunlight could not reveal his daughter's secrets - but it seemed to lay bare the fact that she had them. Candlelight wrapped her in a gauzy robe, brought out her delicate strength, her luminous conviction.

"Father..."

"_Quiet_!" he thundered - in his mind he was half-looking at the six-year old girl with pigtails and skinned knees - "How dared you meddle in my business! Thomas Howe will have his blood-feud as soon as he arrives - all hope of an alliance is shattered - you have played right into Eamon's hands! The Banns will squabble like hyenas at the Landsmeet, and if the Blight doesn't finish us Orlais will make us slaves in our own country! Well, I should never have left the two of you under one roof - I've been a fool; I deserve to father fools."

Anora advanced; her vivid eyes flashed in the candlelight. She called every gaze to herself, a cynosure of indignation and passion. Bright as a flame, she challenged her father. "You forget yourself. I am not your daughter. I am your Queen."

Loghain felt himself condense in anger, slow-moving and implacable as thunder. _...I created a King and won his kingdom - you inherited it! Why can't you trust me as he did... _He saw all the selves she'd been: Cailan's partner-in-crime, wielding pots and pans and slaying ogres - the lonely, intense teenager who'd stood with him over Celia's grave, the delicate strands between them fragile as gossamer thread. But they were not alone - he could not hold that vision of her up to the gaze of her subjects. He hesitated - she cut in ahead with the quicksilver precision of lightning.

"Thomas and Nathaniel Howe will be given exactly one day to denounce the acts their father committed to earn his death here. If they join our forces without reservation, I will remember that Rendon Howe's ill-considered deeds were done for their sakes. If they refuse, I will give their lands to men who know the meaning of loyalty."

The echo of Maric's words stopped him in his tracks. _...A white shadow of the ebullient, exasperating friend he'd been, eyes glittering like the runes across his blade, he stood above the bodies of the traitor Banns. Blood spread in a scarlet spiderwork across the cracks in the Chantry stone..._ She did not have Maric's charm - the little girl who had failed to win the hearts of Gwaren's children could command respect but not love - but she was every inch his successor. Bone-pale and hard as the Dragonbone sword.

Pride throbbed under Loghain's old skin; he looked at his daughter as though seeing her for the first time. For a long moment, nobody moved; he didn't move. Anora met his stare as if she were prepared to outface the world.

"No, father: it is you who have brought blood-feud down on us - with Orlais. You say I must trust you to see us through it - am I to merely watch what happens in my own kingdom? If you could see past your own losses you would see that not all victory requires bloodshed and not all leadership requires battle. Just for once, father - I would like _you_ to trust _me_." He was not sure he could - he had no vision of a future that could replace the worn framework of the past. Her eyes were winter blue - she had his eyes, Celia had often said - but they seemed full of light as a hawk's eyes, staring through him to distant lands he could not see. He thought of the graceful white eagles, the way their gaze claimed the land to its farthest end.

"You wish to make peace with Orlais? Peace just means fighting someone else's enemies in someone else's wars for someone else's reasons."

"They say King Maric opened negotiations with Empress Celene before he died - if he had lived, would you have imprisoned him too? How long can you exist with the thought that only you can save Ferelden and remain sane?"

Anora could never understand: it wasn't pride that prevented him questioning himself. He'd left pride behind the day he'd fled at Ostagar - since then he'd used Blood Magic and assassins and sold his own people as slaves. By now pride hung like cast-off rags. But Maric and Rowan had needed him to make the decisions they could not: Gwaren, West Hill, Katriel - he could never have done it without the certainty that formed the iron rock of his resolve. Maric had asked - no, _demanded_ - that he put Ferelden first. _Would_ he have betrayed Maric to fulfil that promise? He wasn't sure which prospect frightened him more - that he would have done so, or that he would not.

"I am calling all the Banns here - including Arl Eamon. The messenger I send to his estate will approach my handmaid Erlina privately. Between her and the Warden we will neutralize that threat."

"How can you be certain these two"... Loghain left a pause long enough for the Warden to fill in several undesirable epithets before continuing... "young ladies will not betray you?"

"Certainty is a weakness, father. I will let you have it." Giving him a bow as correct and defiant as a formal invitation to duel, Queen Anora left the room.

Dark hatred suddenly pressed between his shoulder-blades; thickened the air around him like the weight of water. He turned, and met the stare of the two Banns already here: Sighard and Alfstanna. Sighard strode forward. A man his own age, a man he had fought beside, one of the few nobles he genuinely respected. Loathing stretched all familiarity from the blunt, rugged features.

Loghain faced him with the manner of the soldier, understanding that it was an open question whether Sighard would attack him there and then.

"You did know," the man said.

It never occurred to Loghain to argue ignorance of Howe's actions - he said only:

"After the Blight, we will duel. But I expect your support till then: Ferelden comes first."

Sighard gave a brief nod. The young woman beside him - one of the few noblewomen who followed the tradition of warriors such as Moira and Rowan and whom he had always liked because of it - said coldly, "_We_ know where our duty lies. But in the case of my brother, I fear the Chantry will not be so patient."

"Let me worry about that." Loghain gave her a dry, ironic bow. In truth, a bitter kernel of doubt had wormed inside him, driven home by the accusation in those two very Ferelden faces. Howe _had_ surprised him. Loghain had wanted to save his world, his way, price no object. But Anora, who wanted the same, had chosen a different price - for the first time, it occurred to him to wonder whether _he _had chosen rightly.

When they left, he faced Cauthrien. "I didn't know beforehand," he admitted, "But I planned to kill the boy to maintain the alliance."

Suddenly, like a weight thrown across her shoulders, Cauthrien felt an awareness of being leaned on, of being needed for more than loyalty. It brought no joy - it was like glimpsing the first mark of a deadly sickness. _Doubt - he can bear anything but doubt..._

"The Banns have short memories," she said, her low, controlled voice holding the solidity of earth, "In thirty years you have brought more life to this country than death."

Loghain gazed at her in silence, his gratitude sharp as thorns. He'd heard it said that he represented the Ferelden ideals of hard-work and independence. In truth, a series of chance disasters - from his mother's murder to his father's sacrifice - had catapulted him to military command at the age of twenty. It was she who had truly _earned_ her rise from farm-girl to knight. He wanted to thank her and tried to do it with his expression, but to come out and say such a thing in this instant of confession - he couldn't. Not because he couldn't find it in himself to be gracious, but because he had never polished the words. Awkward, always awkward. Cauthrien turned away with the blunt abruptness of Ferelden folk, her dark eyes faintly wistful, and met the raised eyebrows of the Warden. She seemed to take in the details of the Warden's appearance, and started in a sudden understanding he couldn't quite put his finger on. The Warden's lip curled upward in a tiny, knowing smile.

"We Elves know where our duty lies, too. You need not worry. Now - Queen Anora has said the Wardens may use this estate as a temporary base. As that makes me your hostess - would the two of you like anything to drink?"

Loghain suspected that Cauthrien wanted to wipe the smirk off the Warden's face as badly as he did. The gathering of the Banns couldn't come quickly enough.

* * *

Several hours later, Loghain watched the last of the Banns trickle into the Hall. Arl Howe's dour residence was transformed into a sparkling riot of colour. Firelight painted ornate tapestries in lurid tones; oil lamps glittered with almost festive abandon. Bann Ceorlic - son of the man Maric had left bleeding out his life on the Chantry floor - kept glancing towards the opened doors, face as florid as his tunic. Beside him, thin, wiry Bann Loren twitched nervously. Arl Wulf stood next to Sighard and Alfstanna, loud voice booming over all:

"Well - I told Eamon I'd support him: he's with the Warden, after all - I say it's the _Blight_ we need to worry about, not the Teyrn's Civil War..."

Arl Leonas Bryland was talking earnestly to Bann Voric: "... my Habren would be delighted to accept your suit..."

Cauthrien was the only person who stood within a few feet of Loghain, but everyone in the room kept glancing at him, as if expecting him to call the room to order. He stared straight ahead, finding a certain dry amusement in the proceedings: they would learn soon enough who had stage-managed this production. Anora waited to make her grand entrance; on her instruction, both the Warden and Erlina were hidden in the wings. _She could have been a bard..._

Last of all, Arl Eamon entered - Anora's instinct had been correct: the fear of losing influence had proven greater than the fear of treachery. A small contingent of guards surrounded him - Loghain drew rapid calculations of their chances against Anora's men. A murmur ran through the gathering at the sight of the man beside him: few had ever met the Bastard Prince. Candlelight reflected oddly in his eyes; their yellow glare sought his: flat, unblinking, deadly. Odd to see such hatred on Maric's face. It occurred to Loghain that Anora might have miscalculated. Her last memory of this boy was ten years ago, on one of their rare visits to Redcliffe: a straw-haired, muddy-faced scamp, covered in the filth of the stables. Loghain had been stunned by the quick fear in the boy's eyes, the perpetual frown of apology. He had realised then that Eamon had broken his promise to Maric, that he had raised the boy with an inexplicable policy of repression. He'd had no chance to pursue the matter - shortly afterward Eamon had packed the boy off to the Chantry. Now the older man kept a firm hand on his shoulder, solicitous as a favourite uncle, and Loghain realised it was the only thing preventing Alistair from charging across the room and demanding the Warden's whereabouts.

A sparkle of silver caught his eye. Anora cleaved the chaos, bright and lucid as the Dragonbone blade, moving with lithe decisive grave to the centre of the room. A moment's stillness: even Alistair was drawn into looking at her.

"My Lords and Ladies of the Realm," she began, "I have called you here - a week before the Landsmeet is due to take place - to beg your indulgence. Arl Eamon Guerrin is within his rights to call you here, of course - away from our country's defence in the middle of a Blight - but I ask to postpone it until the nation is secure."

A stir of surprised voices erupted. Anora held up a regal hand; an elegant reflex borne of five years of rulership.

"Your majesty," Eamon spoke, all stern nobility, "Is there some reason you wish to deny the legitimate challenge of Prince Alistair Theirin?" He bore down on the last word, as if it were the only one that mattered. "One might wonder - do you fear to hold the Landsmeet now?"

Anora smiled - a fell smile, pale and cold, "Indeed, your grace - I fear we may find ourselves discussing the matter of succession with the darkspawn."

A suppressed titter ran through the crowd. Arl Wulf, always more forthright than his peers, burst into spontaneous applause. Arl Eamon, face turned to vinegar, renewed his argument:

"The Blight is real - but I question whether we need Teyrn Loghain to help us defeat it. The armies of Ferelden and the Wardens shall unite - led by the rightful heir to the throne - and I would offer counsel..."

Eamon was bringing his own unique qualifications to bear: namely, his relationship to Arl Rendorn Guerrin and Queen Rowan. He recalled the deeds of ghosts, and the words woke a trail of memory, a road of fire. Images flickered in Loghain's mind: lambent, fluid, ephemeral, known to others only as the statues that adorned the city. Moments frozen in time and exaggerated to legend. Something that ran through his blood - something that _was_ his blood - reduced to artefact. Maric's smile, unmarked by age and disappointment, that clumsy exuberance that somehow translated to leadership. Rowan riding to his rescue, her strength all grace, her green plume trailing. A bird in flight - a ship at sea - Rowan on horseback... He had known in that instant that here was a woman he would never need to fear for - she would never be helpless, as his mother had been - her sword-arm and head for strategy the equal of his own. And the stories never mentioned the humour the three had shared - the jokes of the young whose meaning he no longer knew.

To hear Eamon talk, one would think he'd fought the whole war at Maric's side - or by himself, with Maric coming in at the end. At his signal, one of his men passed round a very familiar looking document. At the evidence of his slave-trading, the mouths of the nobles rounded to sad, horrified circles - but Loghain caught the glint of calculation in more than a few eyes. They managed to dredge up a modicum of outrage - but not enough for Eamon's purposes. Realising this, the Arl changed tactics with a speed Loghain would have admired on the battlefield:

"My Lords and Ladies of the Landsmeet, Teyrn Loghain would have us give up our freedoms, our traditions, out of fear. How many of you have had lands confiscated - how many have had sons conscripted - how many of you did he consult before declaring himself Regent? How many who spoke against him have mysteriously disappeared? I myself suffered poison at the hands of a Blood Mage hired by his ally, Arl Howe. These are the methods of Orlais, not Ferelden. Must we give up everything good about our nation in order to save it?"

A low murmur spread among the crowd - Anora looked too small to constrain them. He remembered her facing the cruel children of Gwaren - was once more in that very first, impromptu Landsmeet, while Maric - pale and sweating in an oversized ermine robe - watched the room fall out of his control. Anora shot him a warning look, arrow-sharp, her eyes blue-bright as ice. Loghain ignored it. He strode into the centre of the room, meeting Eamon's speech with sarcastic applause.

"A fine performance, Eamon - but no-one here is taken in by it. You would attempt to put a puppet on the throne - and every soul here knows it. The better question is - who will pull the strings? Tell me: how will the Orlesians take our nation from us? Will they deign to send their troops - or simply issue their commands through this would-be King? Tell me, Eamon: what did they offer you? How much is the price of Ferelden honour these days? You cared about this land once - before you got too old and fat to even see what you risk!" His scathing glance took in all the Banns, their ruddy, sweating faces avid: "Which of you stood against King Meghren when his troops flattened your fields and raped your wives? None of you deserve a say in what happens here! None of you have spilled blood for this land the way I have! _How dare you judge me._"

There were those in the room who actually strained toward him, like dogs on a leash. The image was underscored by the way they checked and growled when confronted with his proud defiance. Glancing from side to side, an alpha wolf inspecting a pack, he examined each Bann in the room. None matched his gaze for long. But their very fear curdled to resentment, they looked to each other; gathering, building courage. Anger was counterbalanced by uncertainty: by habits of mind learned during many years of Anora's peaceful rule - by the perfectly reasonable idea that it was dangerous to weaken their forces during a Blight - by the manifest presence of Anora's guards around the room. Nevertheless, the illumination of flames and candlelight had a disturbing effect on faces and rationality. People began to look garish to each other, wild and strange, the air was full of shadows, the atmosphere seemed to flicker. Bann Ceorlic moved to stand beside Eamon in a clear gesture of support - his eyes held the long-germinal hatred for his father's murderer, masked in servility these long years. Bann Loren, known for the fluidity of his alliances, joined him. Outrage swelled in the room; the Banns were ripe for violence as hot summer for thunderstorms. Eamon raised an arm like a conductor - of music or lightning - head thrown back in his moment of triumph:

"You blackmailed the Warden into coming here - threatened the very citizens you would have sold as slaves! What arts have you employed to keep her? Does she even still live?"

Loghain, watching those fleshy features, sharp, seeking eyes and beard quivering with indignation, saw something sickening: the covert, shamed yearning to see the Warden marked by rape and torture - not a wish to see her suffer, but the satisfaction of a man who sees events work out as expected. Anora made a subtle gesture - a hidden signal.

_...Well, Anora: I hope you know what you've given your ally to bite on. I hope she has the teeth for it. And I hope you don't find them turned on you..._

"I believe I can speak for myself," the Warden began. Her voice was a flat, rehearsed monotone, her pale, pinched features were closed around anguish. She wore the red Dragonscale - sword and dagger to prove her freedom - but the hands she held behind her back were shaking slightly and she looked small surrounded by the Banns. A child wanting to play at war. The Bastard Prince stared in shock - he took a step toward her and Loghain saw Eamon's fat fingers tighten around his shoulder, holding him back. The eyes the Warden turned to Maric's son were golden discs of naked yearning, so unguarded Loghain had to look away, as though she had just stripped in front of him. What a pleasure, to be treated to romantic drama in the middle of a Blight.

"The Queen speaks the truth," she said quietly. Her voice was pale and thin - but it somehow held the attention of every man in the room. "We must end the Civil War and defer the question of the throne until the Blight is defeated. We must stop the horde before it reaches Denerim. That is why I have allied with Teyrn Loghain. He will lead Ferelden's armies. Alistair, you and I will lead the Wardens' allies and fight alongside him."

Alistair's face crumpled. Loghain saw him as many things at once: the straw-haired lad - Maric, his face bunched in stubbornness: _"Katriel is special. I don't _know_ that she'd be my Queen, but would that be so wrong?"_ - and an implacable enemy.

"And you expect me to believe you haven't allied with that monster under duress? You never wear make-up, Ril! What did those bastards do to you? What are you hiding?"

"Alistair..." the Warden's voice caught, hitched - Loghain realised she was struggling against tears - "I swear on my people's lives that Teyrn Loghain did not mistreat me." She had recovered herself; her face held an odd frozen stillness, like a mask or a shield. "I told you before: I believe we need the Teyrn's strategies to save Denerim. I hope you love me enough to understand and forgive."

Alistair faced her, mouth down-curved sternly: a boy's mouth, a King's face, a lover's eyes. "I do, too," he said softly, "I know you believe your arguments. I can't. You told me Loghain had no choice but to retreat at Ostagar - but he _had_ a choice when he turned away reinforcements at the border. He had a choice when he hunted us like animals: the only two people who can save Ferelden! I would rather ally with a mediocre strategist..." Eamon gave a start of annoyance that nearly had Loghain giving Alistair an appreciative nod "...than a great one as reckless, as vicious, as blind as that."

Loghain saw the Warden hesitate. She teetered on the edge of agreement, as though seeing Alistair for the first time, as though ready - just for once - to trust him enough to leave the decision in his hands.

Anora stepped forward, standing beside the Warden. Firelight caught her pale hair in a wash of rose light, turning it auburn; wreathed silver armour in flames like burning ice.

"If you do not believe that men can change," the Queen cried in a ringing voice, "Then I would suggest you listen to Riordan, Warden-Commander of Montsimmard."

The damned Orlesian entered, followed by the quick, birdlike figure of Anora's handmaiden. Even stiff and pained from his injuries, he moved with a quicksilver, louche grace that set Loghain's teeth on edge.

"It is a pleasure to finally meet you, Alistair," he said, the musical, accented voice grave and gentle, "Duncan spoke very highly of you."

For a blazing instant, the boy-King's face melted to that of a love-starved child.

"I wonder if he ever told you something your father said to him, long ago: _We all make mistakes. Some of them are going to cost others dearly. What's important is that you learn from what you've done_."

The echo tightened Loghain's chest: he could hear the wry, wistful voice of the older Maric, a man whose whimsical sense of humour still shone in intermittent flashes beneath the cruelty and compromise of ruling. Their friendship, once ended by hard choices, revived in later years: two old fools embarrassing themselves over spar and ale, or sharing quiet reminiscences. Alistair, too, had the look of a man finding a piece of the past. Then the Orlesian's voice hardened - he stared at Loghain with dry, sardonic amusement.

"In Orlais we sometimes scoff at Ferelden hospitality - but I can assure you the Teyrn has treated me as graciously as any chevalier might have done." Loghain ground his teeth against the retorts that ached to explode past. "He understands - as he did not before - the need for Wardens to defeat the Blight."

"The Warden-Commander speaks the truth." That was Anora, holding the attention of the crowd. "My father has learned from his mistakes. He naively placed his trust in Arl Rendon Howe: the man who engineered the Tevinter alliance - the man who hired Blood Mages - the man who imprisoned innocents. But when he saw the traitor attempt to force his attentions on me - to win the throne by violence and marriage - he acted as any father would and slew him on the spot!"

The collective intake of breath from the crowd was a breeze of shock.

Loghain had all he could handle trying to cover his own astonishment. Shock and outrage could not quite conquer his sneaking tendrils of pride: in one move, Anora had protected the Warden, protected _him_ from the Chantry's justice - and ensured he could never ally with the sons of Howe to regain power. Pre-emptive strike, before the Chantry learned of their Templar's fate - before the Banns of Amaranthine arrived with Thomas Howe. The same strategy he had devised against the darkspawn: disrupt and defeat them in pieces. He must agree here, or see the gathering fall apart; could never then retract it. The jaws of the trap closed neatly: he was protected and powerless as Anora had been, locked in her chambers.

Anora held up a hand to quiet the crowd. Few here were allies of Howe; his influence had been feared, but he had earned almost universal dislike. Already he could scent the jostling to fill the vacuum of power, as dogs edged around a carcass.

"The sons of Howe are not responsible for their father's treachery: if they swear allegiance, they may keep the Arling of Amaranthine. But the position of Arl of Denerim, granted after the deaths of Urien Kendall and his sons, shall be dissolved..."

A low swell of muttering sounded like distant thunder - many had had eyes on that plum.

"... Arl Howe was responsible for the dreadful mismanagement of the capital - the privations that many of you have suffered..."

Muttering turned to satisfied agreement; Loghain fought a cynical smile. Privations - did these fools think a city could survive war without rationing! And they had been his orders. Now the Banns were cheering the brighter world ushered in by the death of their scapegoat.

"His heirs shall not be trusted with similar authority: the new Charter returns control to the Crown. To make amends for Howe's crimes, I declare the Alienage shall have autonomy: its own laws; its own Bann."

The noise returned, like the crash of incoming tides. Knife-ears raised to nobility! Discontent sharpened to protest, like many untuned instruments twanging together. The noise rasped along Loghain's nerves like wire brush. Eamon caught and seized on it:

"Ah - we see the treachery! What else could the Queen have offered the Elven Warden to buy her allegiance - should we trust anything such a mercenary says..."

The dark, darting form of Erlina - one moon-pale hand clutching her cloak as though trying to draw it over herself like shadows - approached the Queen. A tremor shook her like the ripple of water, but - in full view of Arl Eamon - she gave a sheaf of letters into the Queen's hands.

"The better question is...the better...question is..."

Anora lifted the first letter delicately, as a lady might raise a fan. Eamon's eyes followed it as a bird follows the jewelled menace of a snake. The wax seal glinted: the blue-and-gold colours of Orlais winked in a bright flash. Understanding burst in Loghain with a glow of unmixed pleasure: he remembered Anora coming to him with her suspicions; his decision, though he had not shared it with her, to put a stop to Eamon's schemes any way he could - Howe providing the means. Anora's response was subtler - deadlier than Jowan's poison. He had not known she held the proof in her hands.

Eamon's mouth closed and opened; nothing came out but breath.

Everyone stared at him. Anora took a step closer. Firelight retreated as her angle changed; shadows reclaimed her. She toyed with him like a pale cat: "My dear ser, take your time. Do not be disturbed; it will come back to you in a moment." Her eyes, light and hard and unblinking, measured his fear.

Loghain read the calculations on Eamon's broad, sweating face: what cat-and-mouse game was this - it was impossible the Queen should not make them public! He should never have trusted that little snake of an Orlesian spy! An announcement from Cailan was one thing: the young man had had the charm - and the bloodline - to sell such an idea. If the Banns knew how he had laid the groundwork - or what else was in those letters...

"Try to think of it little by little," said Anora kindly, "No need to be put off by a moment's dry-up, like _bards _in the theatre. We are not in Orlais; I assure you, we can wait."

Eyes glazed in dull panic, Eamon mumbled something incoherent - Loghain watched him struggle to collect his argument. The bleaker the odds, the more fiercely _he_ would have pressed his attack; but Eamon was cut from different cloth. Anora's lips moved gently, smilingly, silently. He said: "I have no objections" stepped back and fell silent.

Father and daughter exchanged looks, in a moment of perfect harmony: united heirs of hardy Ferelden folk who laid their plots carefully, watered them, and waited with dour patience for the right moment to harvest vengeance. A ripple of un-Ferelden delight touched him; he recalled the thousand whispers his daughter had suffered, the unexplained smirks that turned away when faced: barren, fallow, a worn-out garment hanging in the palace because Cailan had not the heart to put it aside... Those insults had been avenged; their originator hoist by his own petard. It had been as neat as Anora's turning the tables on him; he could barely keep his face straight as he looked dryly at Eamon: two old men undone by two young women.

"My Lords and Ladies," Anora was saying, "I propose that my father - Loghain Mac Tir, the Hero of River Dane - remain General of our armies. But he will step down as Regent. I will lead Ferelden through the Blight. This woman - Warden Rilian Tabris - aided by her companions, Wardens Alistair and Riordan, shall lead the alliance of Elves, Dwarves and men - including Ferelden's forces."

So - the chit was to be in overall command. It was a smart move on Anora's part - he was too divisive a prospect, now; the Warden a far more attractive figurehead. He supposed he ought to be used to it: Golden Maric had stolen all the best lines, been the front man to an adoring public, while his taciturn shadow pulled his ass out of the fire more times than he could count. In truth, he had preferred it that way: cheering crowds made him deeply uneasy; showed up the blunt gracelessness of a churl in fancy armour while his darker deeds twisted around him. Maric, like his father, had been like light - he had followed their visions and made them happen; he could not have created his own.

Well - he could no longer put the moment off. He strode to the centre of the room; Anora, understanding timing better than any bard, moved gracefully aside, allowing her father and the Warden to have centre stage: broadsword and rapier.

"My Lords and Ladies: our land has been threatened before. It's been invaded and lost and won, times beyond counting. We Fereldens have proven that we will never truly be conquered as long as we are united. _We must not let ourselves be divided now_. Stand with me - stand with us - and we will defeat even the Blight!"

Loghain's words drew spontaneous cheers. Eamon's pale eyes boiled like water. The Warden had interfered once too often, and with too much finality. Loghain saw him withdraw his hand from Alistair's shoulder - a gesture like slipping a hound from a leash - and all at once Eamon's _policy_ toward the boy made sense.

Alistair started towards him. His blade whispered out of its scabbard and sliced the air with a murderous hiss. A collective gasp - the crowd edged backward.

Well - if the boy wanted a duel, he would get one. The unworthy urge to break the fetters of these humiliating hours - Anora had trussed him like a hog on its way to market - sang through him. He readied himself, weapon drawn, moving away from the Warden, circling.

Suddenly, literally a blur, the Warden was between them, all eyes and fury. "You will put down your weapons! Is this how we shall defeat the Blight: by the two of you snapping like dogs! Do you think this posturing will restore your pride, old man? Alistair - are you mad! Can't you see the Arl is using you?"

Loghain sheathed his blade with an ill grace. Alistair trembled under the weight of those eyes. The painted, tormented mask glistened in the firelight...

_... Maric, face sheened by sweat and tears, bathed in the electric glow of his drawn sword. Katriel pleading with him, eyes bleak as green glass..._

… For long, eerie moments they stood transfixed, leaning toward each other as if held back by invisible bonds. Alistair hesitated. Bunched muscles fell slack and lost definition. The warrior's grimace slipped from his face, leaving an almost baffled, embarrassed cast. He turned to the Arl, seeking guidance - caught a glimpse of Eamon's avid, fractional smile the instant before he managed to turn it to frowning concern. It went through him with barely a tremor; his body turned to iron around the blow. But iron was brittle; Loghain saw the break in his eyes. "I do see it," he said, voice dull as weathered stone, "the Arl was never the father I hoped he was. I never knew where I fit; I never knew exactly what he wanted, only that I wasn't right. Duncan was the only person who ever asked me what _I _wanted. He took on the Chantry to keep me. What leader does that for a clumsy stableboy? He told me I had the heart to make a Warden - he looked at me and _knew_. He told me - before Ostagar - he'd started having the dreams again..."

"Alistair!" Riordan's warning went unheeded.

"...that he knew his time would come soon. But it should have been him against the Archdemon - it should have been worthy of him. Because of that monster, he rots in a Blighted field..."

"Alistair, please...stand down..." The Warden's choked whisper seemed to reach him; doubts ran across his features the way wind rippled wheat. His eyes filled up with shadows. His lips parted, as if silently trying to explain - to himself, most likely.

"Alistair," Riordan said, "Duncan would tell you he never sought personal glory; that all that mattered to him was stopping the Blight. That we ally with anyone: regicides, torturers, traitors, to achieve this..."

Loghain saw at once the Orlesian had made a mistake; he should have let the Warden's plea gnaw at him unaided. As if the bones of his skull were shifting, Alistair's face took on the implacable hardness of Dragonbone.

"You weren't at Ostagar: you didn't see how this man hated and distrusted Duncan from the beginning. I was _there_: I saw the cost of his paranoia, down to the last dead soldier, the last poisoned field..." He closed the distance between them, blade leading...

_...With a scream of blind rage, Maric struck. As her body folded over the bright runes, the room sank into shadow..._

… Alistair pushed past the Warden on her left side, blade held away from her, his greater strength forcing her off-balance. The Warden's blade flashed as it leapt from its scabbard. A red gash appeared along Alistair's palm; not deep, but painful. Gasping, he stared at his hand as if he couldn't quite believe it. He clenched his fist; bright blood dripped onto the floor.

"I said: _stand down_," the Warden hissed, her voice full of threat, her face a deathmask, "It'll be the other hand next time, and I'll cut so that you never draw a weapon again."

Trembling, voice near to breaking, Alistair choked out: "I trusted you, I...believed in you. I would have married you, no matter what Eamon said. And for what?"

_...Katriel's void eyes and empty face staring up at him; the butcher's blow that, for an instant, had seemed to kill Maric too..._

Alistair turned on his heel and stumbled away, heading for the double-doors and the bright blaze of sunlight, moving like a man who has something broken in his chest and has no idea what it is.

Almost without voice, the Warden said to Riordan: "Go after him. Show him what Duncan would have taught him and Eamon never did."

"Sister…" The Orlesian spoke with surprising familiarity, and Loghain realized they must have spoken already, before his arrival. The Warden made a sharp, cutting gesture, and Loghain watched, open-mouthed, as her senior officer stopped in mid-sentence and deferred.

"Alistair will be Warden-Commander of Ferelden: that's what Duncan planned for him. You are the only man who can deal with Guillaume Caron. _We each have our place_."

Their swift, covert glance spoke of shared knowledge - a plan hidden from all others as Eamon had once hidden Alistair. She looked strange, fey - it occurred to him that from the day they'd met at Ostagar he'd known he was looking at a dead woman. He'd told her not to let anyone tell her she didn't belong - but even then he'd known the die was cast, that Cailan would not listen to reason.

The Orlesian nodded and left. Anora was speaking, dismissing the Banns, telling them she would call a war-council at the palace as soon as Amaranthine's forces arrived. The crowd poured out of the room like multi-coloured liquid gushing from a jar.

Arl Eamon, black as a thundercloud, approached the Warden and Erlina. The little Orlesian flinched at the naked hatred and stepped back; the Warden stepped protectively in front. "And _you_," he said to her, soft jowls quivering, "have acted as might be expected of one of your race and station: insolently using your present fortune, forgetful of your unforeseen rise to power from humble origins..." and that, Loghain knew, was directed as much at him, though Eamon lacked the courage to meet his eyes, "Well - old times come round again. Like King Maric and my father at West Hill, Alistair and I are undone by Elven treachery."

Loghain might have expected the Warden to come out with some insolent retort - she had certainly not been shy with him! - but her pale, pinched face was withdrawn, closed. She was gazing into the distance - the thousand yard stare he'd seen more times that he cared to remember. Her dry, abstracted gaze went through Eamon, utterly disinterested. That seemed to enrage the Arl more than words; his fingers clenched as though imagining them around her neck. He spun on his heel and stalked from the estate.

Against his better judgement, Loghain approached her.

"So: Bann of the Alienage - was that what my daughter promised in exchange for your allegiance?"

The Warden blinked, eyes red with exhaustion and hostility and grief. As if by accident, some of the tension in her face loosened. On some level, Loghain had distracted her.

"No." The dry, bald statement left out even the honorific. Never a master of social graces, her current state pared her down to bleak, clipped conviction - a battle-language Loghain preferred to frills. "The Queen didn't need to promise anything for what I just did: I want to save Denerim as much as you do. For the rest…" her breath hitched - an infinitesimal pause - and Loghain knew she must be referring to Howe's murder: what other service could she render? "It isn't me who will be Bann - it will be our Hahren, Valendrian. _Our _Banns will be chosen; the position will not be hereditary. Judging by what I've seen, I think our way is better, don't you?" The swollen eyes narrowed malevolently. The hard curl of her lip was more expressive than words.

So - no personal gain: none of the wealth and power she might have had as King Alistair's mistress. She'd murdered that chance as surely as Maric had murdered Katriel. His first impression had been of a young glory-hunter/gold-digger - but this was a decision he might have made himself. He wondered if she understood the implications. A single Elf risen to power was an exotic aberration: the Banns might resent it; they would not feel threatened. To empower a community... He thought of the beginning of the rebellion; that first tumbling, insignificant rock that starts the landslide.

"You want a great deal, Warden - and I think you are just learning how cruel you must be to take it. I need your armies - I see myself putting my hand out to you as a thirsty man reaches for a cup of water. But you are many things - many cups - and in at least one I know is poison."

The Warden started - a moment of shock. _Was _she considering poisoning him, then? He supposed it would be poetic justice, after the Blood Magic he had used against Arl Eamon. Which had been Howe's idea… He wondered if he would ever have his curiosity satisfied over how she had managed that assassination.

"You cost me Howe, you know," he said, pushing a little.

A moment's silence. He had the unsettling impression that the Warden lived in the Fade once more, her eyes on something far from the present. He stepped back. She blinked. She seemed puzzled by his changed position, but made no reference to it. Her flat, cold smile opened her face like a wound.

"You can thank me later."

_Author's note: I'd like to thank my awesome reviewers: Arsinoe de Blassenville, Icey Cold, Shakespira, Enaid Aderyn, Mutive, ArtemysFayr, Analect, Lisakodysam, Persephone Chiara, Mousetalker, Nithu, Sleepyowlet, Eva Galana and Forestnymphe, and all who have alerted, favourited and viewed. After some thought, I've decided to change the title, as we have come to the end of the events implied in "The Landsmseet". Chapter Ten of "Death and the Maiden" will see Commander Rilian and General Loghain push the horde back south and engage at Ostagar. I've always wanted to write the End Game as a larger campaign: the idea being that as Eamon is no longer in charge they are not going to miss the horde on its way to the capital! If it sucks, don't blame me - I'm a warehouse manager, not a strategist :)_

_Special thanks to Arsinoe and Icey Cold, whose thoughtful insights have helped form many aspects of this chapter, as well as some of the best lines (you cost me Howe/iron rock of his resolve/Fereldens lay their plots early...) I appreciate it :)_


	10. Chapter 10: The Muster of Denerim

Queen Anora stood by the dresser in her palace chambers. Her father and Arl Eamon, bloodlessly routed two days previously, were honoured guests. Her silver armour encased her like unbreakable ice; her face and hair bore Erlina's immaculate handiwork. Now the young woman worked on the Warden, at Anora's instruction - at dawn they addressed Denerim's army. The Warden had had word that the Dalish had joined _her_ forces, camped by the Hafter River. The Circle, Templars and Dwarven troops massed at Redcliffe, ready to attack the horde from the west. Alistair and Riordan had already left, to get word of the alliance to the Warden's men. The Warden had sent Jowan with them - Anora suspected to get him out of the reach of Revered Mother Leanna. The Warden's Dragonscale glittered in the candlelight; wreathed her in flames - the helm's red plume added to her not very impressive height. The Warden turned slowly, a ghost of a self-mocking grin playing about her lips. Speaking from the corner of her mouth, she asked,

"Am I pretty?"

In truth the Warden's appearance did not trouble Anora nearly as much as it had done three nights ago, when the marks of Howe's torture had paraded across her face in a sickly riot of purple and green. Jowan's healing and Orlesian foundation had worked a minor miracle. That, and the look on her face when facing Alistair down, were vivid memories. The Warden had rallied, but her strength was as much a mask as the make-up. Her voice had never recovered any sense of liveliness. The sound was like bad steel scraping on stone.

A sharp rap on the door jolted Anora from her musings.

"Come in," she called, knowing only one person would join her at this hour. She and her father were both early risers. The General strode into the room, the withering cut of his eyes letting the Warden know exactly what he thought of her question.

"_Pretty_ never won a battle - any more than legend did." The reference seemed to hold some significance, though Anora couldn't guess it. Caught like a child playing dress-up, the Warden's face was nearly as red as her armour - but her lips quirked in a cocky grin.

"The people expect a heroine: why shouldn't I look the part?"

"Indeed," was the sour rejoinder, "You're like a peacock for finery."

The Warden raked him with a long, cool stare. "Nice Orlesian plate you're wearing."

"It's a symbol of Ferelden freedom."

"Have you ever tried saying "Ferelden freedom" in a Tevinter warehouse? Perhaps it's the echo that makes the words sound a little - hollow."

Round one to the Warden, Anora thought with a silvery ripple of amusement. Unfortunately, no-one had ever taught the young woman how to win gracefully - or quit while she was ahead. Lured on by success, she thought she could do better yet:

"_My_ armour says: Dragonslayer - which is the more relevant message."

"Warden, I do not dispute your dragon-slaying qualifications - only that you actually have a clue how to get to that point. Do share with me your strategy for defeating the horde."

Caught off-guard, the young woman floundered. "I…I thought we could use the same tactics I used against the undead at Redcliffe - I mean, on a larger scale…"

"Go on."

As the Warden explained, Loghain's expression became more and more damning. Finally, succinctly, he said: "Ridiculous."

"It's _not _ridiculous - I _saved_ Redcliffe village!" The Warden bristled with indignation - Anora thought her very hair would crackle.

"You won _despite_ your tactics. You made fundamental mistakes in placement of the militia and choice of ground. If you do that against the horde we'll all be dead before you can practice your vaunted dragon-slaying skills."

"Well," the Warden said finally, petulance warring with interest, "What should I do instead?"

A faint smile brushed the crags and scars of the hard-used features. "By the time we reach the horde, you'll know."

Anora, Loghain and the Warden left the chamber for the dimly-lit corridor outside, the Queen's guards forming a protective square around them. Tapestries of bloodless war, stylised dogs and horses stirred to faint, ghostly life in the flickering candlelight.

"Warden," Anora said quietly, "Did you wonder why I stopped short of revealing Eamon's treachery to the Banns?"

"Yes, my lady - I did."

"If I had pushed him, he would have fought harder; the threat served better than the deed. Lose with dignity - but win with dignity too."

The Warden's face lit up in sudden understanding, and softened in a rare, brilliant smile.

Anora smiled too. The young woman was learning - as she had learned through the process of readying the city, mustering the army, and dealing with the inescapable politics that went with it. Each Bann led his own men, grouped under Loghain's command - and in turn marching under the banner of the Warden-Commander. Each Bann claimed to have authority for every supply or assigned position or instruction to soldiers and servants - until something went wrong; then they yelled and blamed each other. The Warden practically destroyed Loghain's already inadequate sleep by keeping him up almost all night while she asked for explanations of everything they had done during the day. Her father had complained to her that working with the Warden had all the charm of having his brains pulled out through his ears - but he always provided answers.

Loud footsteps drew her attention - two of the noblemen staying at the palace rounded the corner. Anora recognized the burly form of Thomas Howe - the young man had obviously just returned from the Pearl:

"…teats like a breeding sow - what a handful..."

His brother listened in silence: pale, cool, amused. When they saw who approached, the Howe heirs stopped abruptly. Thomas' face was red with bluster; Nathaniel's controlled stillness had a catlike quality. But they collected themselves - at a prompt from the younger sibling, both men sank into respectful bows. Anora had spoken with them privately and assured them that though the Arling of Denerim had been dissolved, they would keep Amaranthine - if they remained loyal.

"Your majesty," Bann Nathaniel said quietly, grey eyes settling lightly and coolly upon the man Anora had named as their father's murderer - and the one who had actually committed the deed. She sensed the Warden's explosive tension; Nathaniel was a younger image of his father. "I wish to suggest a new weapon that may help against the horde. I have with me a Dwarven master smith named Dworkin, who has invented something called "grenades". Tiny things - but deadly." As he spoke his eyes left Loghain altogether and bored into the Warden with searching intensity. "As with many things: most dangerous when least obvious." The Warden was never a master at deception; Anora saw with dismay that her every thought was projected vividly across her expressive face. A fractional, understanding smile touched Nathaniel's lips with knowing malice.

"Thank you, Bann Nathaniel," Anora said coolly, "I will look into the practical applications. Such details will not be forgotten."

"Your majesty."

"Watch him," Anora warned quietly when they were gone.

Dryly, Loghain said, "Your concern for me is touching - after you blamed me for the deed."

"I did what was necessary: not even the Howe heirs could object to a father defending his daughter. We cannot afford Civil War now - as you should know."

"In any case - I hardly fear the likes of Arl Thomas…"

"Thomas?" Anora asked incredulously, "That young man is no more intelligent than the sword on his hip! Watch Nathaniel: he's the one. Above all, keep a sharp knife at his back."

* * *

The armies formed up on the flat plain south of the capital: the soldiers of Denerim (including a unit of the city's Templars) Gwaren and Dragon's Peak numbered nearly four thousand. The forces of Amaranthine added half as many again. Those of the other Banns would join them on the march south; half of Arl Eamon's men were already at the Warden's camp, along with Bann Temlen's soldiers. Bann Teagan commanded the remainder at Redcliffe. Loghain watched the Howe forces with narrowed scrutiny. Many were Highever troops: absorbed into the main body after the murky events at Castle Cousland. With no known survivors, and the rumours of Cousland treachery spread by Rendon Howe - rumours that Loghain had done nothing to squash - there was no overt rebellion, but the dark seeds of discontent threatened a harvest of violence. Many of the Amaranthine men were farmer levies of Lord Edelbrek, and reminded Loghain all-too-vividly of bunched bulls. They had that same air of solid muscularity, but it was a twitchy, uncertain strength that could as easily become milling panic. Cauthrien groaned audibly beside him, and Loghain raised his eyebrows.

"Don't let Arl Thomas hear you - he could send them back North." In fact, Loghain suspected the support was Nathaniel's doing: the young man was as slippery as his father, but he understood the greater threat far better than most of the Banns.

"Unbearable loss," said Cauthrien, bearing down heavily on the sarcasm, "Farm-boys with swords, most of them. If the Warden's information is good we'll be outnumbered five-to-one by the horde, and we're supposed to not only fight those monsters, but beat them."

"We must." Loghain's brittle vehemence went unchallenged. Cauthrien understood the situation as he did. He wondered if they were, truly, doing the right thing by facing the horde in the open, as the fool Cailan had done. For six months he had prepared the city for defensive warfare - but he and the Warden were in complete agreement that the cost would be terrible. From everything the Warden had told him, it was clear the Archdemon was no aerial tactician. She had headed to Orzammar straight from Lothering - seen the creature in the Dead Trenches - but since then the dragon had remained hidden while the horde advanced north. The old god's song and memories led them above ground, but it was no General. A bloated decaying carcass following a plague of locusts to the largest mass of humanity. He trusted Anora and the men who remained behind to defend the city if the need arose - he trusted his own strategy to make such plans unnecessary. Not even the Archdemon could take Denerim alone.

The war-dogs gambolled in the silvered dawn like pups, darting around their handlers, their hoarse breathing forming white plumes in the chill air. Like him, they had chafed under the confinement of blocky buildings and overcrowded streets. The heavy pounding of their running never failed to lift his spirits.

Dawn painted the skyline in banners of red and gold. Mother Leanna walked with stiff steps along the front line, with incense and blessings. The wardogs yipped, trying to chase the cloying smell - their handlers yanked them back. The loss of Mother Boann at Ostagar was a clammy hand on Loghain's back. He had always liked Mother Ailis' protégé; Leanna was the spiritual successor of Mother Bronach.

Queen Anora rode out to address the men, the Warden beside her. His daughter's grace did not surprise him: memories of their thousand lessons raced through his mind like beads on a golden chain. She was skilled as Rowan had been - though his memories of Rowan were accompanied by the sweat and blood and din of battle. On her white horse, hair gleaming like pale fire, Anora resembled the marble statues of the Queen - but her fierce conviction shone like a diamond flame. The Warden was also surprisingly skilled - from this he deduced that if Eamon had done nothing else for the Bastard Prince, a childhood in the stables had made him a better horseman than his father. Who else would have taught her?

Anora was a different woman in sunlight: her white face stark with uncompromising strength and the hawk-like shadow of his face: his cold eyes, his determined mouth, his nose, added to Celia's delicate beauty. Curiously, it made her seem more vulnerable - her bleak, slightly awkward courage plain for all to see. Her delivery was stilted, cool, but no-one could doubt her intense presence of purpose. And her words were poetic - she had always been Cailan's speech-writer:

"Before us stands the might of the darkspawn horde. Faced with this common threat, we are all of us - human, Elf, Dwarf and Mage - Ferelden: all of us equal..."

War had a habit of removing class - as he and the Night Elves knew very well - pity for them the sentiment wouldn't last beyond the crisis. He guessed from the slightly wistful smile on the Warden's face that she was thinking the same.

"...The Blight that destroys the land destroys the people - but fear not, for we have the Grey Wardens to lead us..."

Yes - so Cailan had thought at Ostagar...

"... The woman you see before you is the saviour of Redcliffe - the slayer of the High Dragon - the finder of the Sacred Ashes. She will lead you into battle against the Maker-damned horde - for behind her stands Andraste!"

Revered Mother Leanna was looking sour - mouth pinched, face puckered in a prune-like frown - but the men were cheering wildly. He thought it a rather grandiose introduction to a whip-thin, sharp-featured Alienage gutter rat - why couldn't Anora have just said: "the woman you see before you is an Elf, raised to the ranks of the Grey Wardens" and called a spade a spade! His daughter was calling the Warden forward - Loghain felt a moment's sympathy, knowing how _he_ hated making speeches - but to his annoyance the little glory-hunter rose to the challenge with more aplomb. Her address was short, but to the point:

"We, the Grey Wardens, are honoured to lead you. If our skill matches yours - if our courage equals yours - no force can defeat us. I salute you. Now - a cheer for the Queen!"

Anora blinked in surprise at the sudden swell of rapturous applause, hesitated a moment, then gave a graceful wave. The movement was assured and elegant, and only Loghain noticed the faint flush of rose on her face - the shy pleasure. Anora had meant this to be the Warden's moment: had set the stage with immaculate direction and then intended to step back to let her star claim the glory - but the Warden had turned that on its head. Gwaren's little girl had rarely received such affection: Cailan had hogged the limelight, often edging her out of the picture altogether - a heartless sun eclipsing a pale moon. All at once, he felt a little warmer toward the Warden - a little better about this whole ridiculous farce...

* * *

The army turned west before heading south, to merge with the Warden's forces still camped along the Hafter River. This far north, the sparsely-settled farmland was untouched by the Blight. Despite the relative quiet, Loghain remained wary. Squads on horseback acted as point and flank guard. The soldiers might regard this as wasted effort, but Loghain's linguistic torching kept them warmed to the task. The vast majority of the army were infantry. Unlike Orlais, where the chevaliers were the main strength and symbol of nobility, the tough Ferelden foot-soldiers considered horses a mode of transportation and fighting a job for a man standing upright. They had a cavalry unit, of course - brought to prominence most memorably by Queen Rowan - but it was a fraction of the whole. As usual, Loghain rode at the head of the main column with a group that consisted of himself, the Warden, and a unit of twenty horsemen. Cauthrien marched with the men. Arl Eamon rode in the rear, responsible for rearguard as well as the supply wagons. Bann Sighard was in tactical command of the remainder of the column. Loghain was in touch with all the elements of the army through signal flags and messengers. As the footpace left the riders with time on their hands, the Warden practiced the manouveres Alistair had taught her. She swung off cavalry-style, across the neck with her back to the horse - the best way in battle, if the horse allowed it - and then remounted. The rest of the morning was devoted to acquiring this skill. Loghain had to smile when he contrasted this with Cauthrien's blunt efficiency. The Warden could afford all the flourish she wanted - the horse did the work. The soldier on foot bought her progress more dearly, and took a sterner view of life.

Afternoon edged toward dusk; the purple sky glimmered over the low hills around Dragon's Peak - by tomorrow they would reach the Warden's army. Heather and scrub formed a fuzzy brown-and-grey carpet. The cavalry slowed, careful of loose stones. The thick line of infantry - rough, practical armour dark as the stones; weapons bristling like the thorny scrub - marched steadily. Loghain sent out scouts, picked his site carefully, and finally made camp by the river's eastern edge. Its long curve gleamed like Maric's Dragonbone blade under the darkening sky. The cavalry went downstream, to water their horses without fouling it for the rest. The men unpacked supplies; watch-fires budded into flame. Loghain spoke to Cauthrien, and took the feel of morale. He found a healthy tension, like a drawn bow's - there was a sense of momentum; this would be the greatest battle of all their lives.

"I'm going to swap this damned plate for leather and go hunting," Loghain told her. Cauthrien opened her mouth to object.

"I'll be careful. I know it's not my job. Who knows when we'll have the chance in the Blighted lands - we should save the supplies. Besides, I need to stretch my legs."

Cauthrien snorted. "I'd gladly swap places with you, ser. Keeping these so-called soldiers alert and moving is like kneading bread: no matter how I push and shove, they look just the same. Go ahead; I'll keep things organized."

"I know. Thank you."

Loghain headed north, to the edge of autumnal woodland. Leaves swirled in the erratic breeze like candle-flames. It occurred to him he hadn't been hunting so long he'd forgotten the exhilaration of it; this was probably his last evening of relative freedom.

* * *

Rilian's warhorse had hated the cautious pace, and hated being trapped in the middle of the column - after feeding and watering the animal, she was aware of the rippling tension, the trembling as if energy were trying to burst through his skin. The black horse she had nicknamed "Racer" had been a gift from Eamon after the quest for the Sacred Ashes - though the Arl might regret it now. One slender, callused hand stroked the elegant arch of the neck; a wistful smile on her distant, absorbed, down-bent face. No-one regretted the betrayal more than she - yet she would do it all again. She pictured the squabbling of the Banns, the chaos of the preparations - a single heart-stopping vision put Eamon in charge instead of Loghain... The sight of orange skies and crumbling buildings was a nameless, persistent horror: vivid as memory, though it hadn't happened. Maybe it had - in the mind of Urthemiel. A promise, a warning - a page she struggled to unwrite.

Racer nudged her, and snorted. It was clearly a challenge. Rilian curled her left hand about the silky mane; her right gripped the base between the shoulders. She leapt, threw her right leg over; she was up. After Howe's torture and Riordan's revelation, her nights were full of the water-loud swirl of blood, the drumbeat of her heart. _If you're not killed, you're still alive_, Shianni had said - and she had never wanted to live as much as now. She felt the thrill of powerful muscles bunching beneath her, felt herself lifted and taken out of her own body, forgot that she was anything but a fast wind racing through a purple-gold dusk. The myriad sounds and smells of the evening washed over her: the rhythmic, mournful, three-note cry of a bird - the damp loam of the riverbank, where sparkling water raced past the wet, refreshed earth - the savoury smoke of the orange campfires... She and Racer leapt around scrub like flames in a playful breeze, occasionally jumping clear across. All too soon they caught up to the red-gold forest - and the dour figure of Loghain, gnarled as the tree-trunks and gloomy as the shadowy dimness. He said nothing until she had dismounted and finished petting Racer, then asked:

"What brings you up here? Boredom?"

"Exactly." She looked him over: strange to see the armoured knight in battered leathers and hunting bow; as strange as hearing Cyrion's stories of a hot-blooded young man who sought the Dalish... Then her gaze slipped past him to the downed stag in the distance - and the famous Grey Warden appetite roared into life. She started forward.

"Don't move." Rilian froze. She felt the weight of the encircling trees and pictured them closing ranks ominously in the fading light. The mesh of branches made her think of a net. One fallen tree lay with its roots in the air like the feet of dead men. She yearned for the complex patchwork of oblong buildings, winding streets like capillaries bringing the bustle of life, the comfort of enclosing walls. Loghain stood as if part of the woods: a grizzled, dark-shrouded old wolf watching from cover. Unexpectedly, a ripple of amusement quirked her lips: _the Elf scared of the forest and the shem at home in it. _Surely some racial memory must call from ancient woods? _Nope, nothing but the prospect of hot food. _Her Elven heritage was community and music and laughter, stories and gossip and dreams.

"You made enough noise riding here to draw a whole army. If anyone else is lurking, they'll catch you off-guard heading for the kill and you'll get an arrow in the back." He smiled - a smile that did not touch the merciless eyes. "I should know - I've done it often enough."

"To chevaliers?" Rilian knew she didn't really need to ask. "Why do you hate Orlais so much?" She cocked her head, her chin tilted up and a little leftward, wondering if he would answer. She thought of him as taciturn - though it appeared that when faced with incompetence he became quite eloquent. She'd overheard his analysis of the Howe turn-out and was still amazed by the inventiveness of his language.

"Hate - doesn't describe it. I've seen painted masked lords beat an old farmer to death with riding crops - to this day I don't know why. Is that hate? I saw good, sensible men fight armoured chevaliers with nothing: no weapons, no armour, not even hope of success, to see the occupation end. Is that hate?"

Rilian blinked. The words were calm, even, but in the steel-blue eyes shone the razor image of memory. _Thirty years ago - I read his history in Mother Boann's book - so strange to be out here, talking like this..._

"All of that was in the past."

A faint, sardonic smile moved the stern mouth. "Spoken like a woman of twenty," he acknowledged dryly.

_Or maybe spoken like an Elf - how many times has father said that remembering the wrongs of the past is like keeping soured milk at the bottom of the pail? We have to forget, in the Alienage, or we couldn't live. We move forward by forcing ourselves never to look back…_

Five years ago in Denerim square. The coiled violence of the mob. Laughing, hateful shem faces. The arc of the descending sword. Blood. Fountaining. The unimaginable sight of Adaia's hand, dropping across her vision, its fingers still clenched in defiance.

_It might have been yesterday. Would Shianni ever forget Vaughan? Will I ever forget Howe? The older women say such men take a fraction of our lives; but you can lose a limb, a future, in seconds; it is no argument…_

"The past is always with us. It's in our bones and our blood and we wear it on our skin. You can think otherwise, but you'll never get far without it."

"I - suppose you're right." Loghain was watching her with a strange expression. She hoped it was not contempt - she could feel rage rising in her like a dangerous spring; one wrong word would set a fire under it. "You and Arl Howe were - the chevaliers of the Alienage..."

Loghain's face darkened; for a moment, his expression was pure rage. Rilian blinked, startled: her careless thrust had hit some old wound. His jaw clenched, his eyes turned to ice, drilling through her as though looking for the perfect stretch of ground upon which to spill her blood. It was satisfying, seeing her own tightly coiled rage siphoned off into him. She thought he was going to let out a blast that would rip her to the bone - but he caught himself, regained control; did not try to explain that the Tevinter deal had been necessity, not sadism. Probably he didn't think her worth the explanation - or maybe he just knew his own motives made no difference to those on the receiving end.

She began to relax, her anger draining out of her - let him wrestle with it! "History tells what you achieved with the aid of a King's army. See what we manage with a Queen's support and Hahren Valendrian as Bann..."

_...and a female Garahel..._

"... But if we can ally with you to defeat the Blight, you ought to have been able to ally with Orlais."

His jaws chewed iron. Yet in spite of his ire he answered her: "That is a fatuous argument. You had already freed the Tevinter captives when you allied with me. Allowing chevaliers across the border afforded no such guarantee."

"No - but you couldn't be sure they meant to enslave Ferelden either. You sent men to the border on the suspicion, divided our forces when we needed them most - and then made my people pay the price."

"I made - a tactical error."

Under other circumstances, Rilian would have been amazed to hear Loghain admit a mistake - amazed to hear him say something that sounded almost like an apology. With the memory of her family packed in crates - the smell of sweat and sickness and desperation so stark in her mind - it acted on her like blood in the water to a shark. Forgetting the wisdom of Anora's advice, she leaned forward, fists on hips, and added: "And another thing: remember that blather about "slaves in your own country"? Well, forget it - I don't think you're tough enough to live in third class with us."

"Is that it?" Loghain scoffed, "Surely you have more to say to me than _that_? I've heard the Alienage speaks profanity as a native tongue; do feel free to - indulge yourself."

"As if you're an example of civilized language! I heard you talking to the Howe men: that particular use of sabatons had never occurred to _me_." Loghain mumbled and huffed, then finally found a tight grin that acknowledged Rilian's point. "Your errors in command were more than tactical. Did you ever wonder why the Night Elves fought for you? People can be more than they are, if they will try for it. It's in the worst of times that we need to cleave together the strongest."

"Where did you hear that?" Loghain asked abruptly, with an odd, searching intensity.

"Mother Boann," Rilian said absently, unwilling to be distracted from her point, "And she was right. It's how I try to lead. Don't you see that soldiers won't fight so well for a leader who sells his people? My community may be "only" Elves - but when that money ran out which social group would you have picked next? That would threaten all their freemen's rights."

Loghain snorted - half-cynical, half-sad:

"I think _you_ underestimate the average citizen's short-sightedness - do you know how many Fereldens were happy to sell their countrymen to the usurper? And I think you do not understand that an army will fight, first and foremost, for a leader who puts _their_ welfare above stiff-necked ideals."

_Or even Kings..._ Rilian remembered his words during their meeting at the gates: that he could not have made Ostagar a repetition of West Hill; his soldiers deserved better. What other stiff-necked idealists had he known: what had been the cost of that first meeting with Prince Maric?

"I looked after _my_ men - human and Elf - should they care for the fate of strangers who happen to be of the same race?" Reluctantly, Rilian remembered Devera: _I am a member of the Tevinter Imperium first; the Minrathous Circle second. Those are the things that matter..._ "And I wonder," his tone cooled and hardened, "what _your_ men would think if they knew you had destroyed the one weapon that could have saved hundreds of them - the one weapon that could have saved an entire race from extinction?"

That hit Rilian square in the gut. She relived the hunt through the Deep Roads - the sticky-sweet taint that choked the air - the twisted flesh that curled in red tendrils about the tunnel walls - the tormented form of - _Laryn_... Rilian had sworn to remember her by her name. She remembered her agonized decision and knew she had capitulated to her gut: to her disgust at Branka's crimes and the pleas of Caridin (who had mentioned the slavery of her own ancestors, so near to any Elf's heart). That her decision to destroy the Anvil had been emotional, not moral.

Loghain was right: would she have destroyed magic, or a Siegetower, or Dworkin's "grenades" because of the potential for misuse? The original golems were volunteers: how did the sacrifice of their souls differ from the truth Riordan had shared with her at Howe's estate? The dwarves had always known such a sacrifice was necessary - how long before Orzammar fell to the horde? Was she a mass-murderer too? She had decided the fate of a people not her own, even as Loghain had decided that Tevinter slavery was better than darkspawn death for the Alienage.

"I - did not have the right, any more than you did. But I was the one there." Alistair and Wynne too, but they had looked to her to make the decision…

…_The only soul I sacrifice will be my own..._

He was looking at her closely, and something strange happened in his face. His expression softened; the tamped-down rage let go of his features. For some reason, she noticed that his right hand was curled. At first she thought it was because he was still angry. Then she realized he had spent so much of his life with a heavy sword in his grasp that he could no longer completely straighten his fingers.

"In any case, there's no use discussing this," he said, "However important you think you are, you didn't cause this mess." His tone was rude, but she could tell his intent was kind. "We have much work left to do." Dismissing the matter along with his own odd charity, he returned to his task.

Loghain carefully scanned the woods, watching as the branches slowly swayed in the evening breeze, listening for a sound out of the ordinary. She realised it was more an exercise than a necessity - he had set his watches carefully; they were still at the borders of Dragon's Peak - but she supposed it was only wise to be cautious. Without comment, Loghain headed for the kill, and Rilian followed, leading her horse. Together, they hoisted the downed stag and laid it across Racer's back. Racer snorted and stamped at the smell of blood, until Loghain went back and, with a firm hand on the bridle, stilled him. Then he scouted ahead for a few moments, before returning.

"Nothing," he grunted, "Unless you have someone hidden in the woods waiting to kill me."

Rilian stiffened. "When I turn against you, I'll go through the front."

"Of course. Sometimes you move so fast one wonders."

It was yet another stinging reference to the night of Howe's death. It rankled to be reminded that Loghain saw the killing as less than honest. She stopped, a cold grin lighting her face.

"Bothers you, doesn't it?"

"I - would like to know how you got close enough to him."

… _The door burst open. The four figures were blurred, shadowy blocks, back-lit by orange torchlight…_

"You really want to know how the Arl met his end?"

"I asked, didn't I? It wasn't just to hear the sound of your voice."

… _There was a roaring flame, a thick coppery taste. Then the world exploded in a tornado of weight, curses, hot breath …_

"Alright."

…_She was half-stifled by the rank human smell of dirty flesh and hair, bloodlust, rage and sex…_

"It's simple. When I got to my room, I had a dagger concealed in…my boot. The door was sealed, of course - but Alistair taught me the Templar ability to negate magic." Actually, she had never succeeded in learning the Templar discipline, though he had tried to teach her; Oghren's Berserker training had proven far more effective. And could the Dispel Magic ability even work on wards? She didn't know - but she was willing to bet Loghain didn't either.

"Go on."

… _He lifted her to her feet by her hair, encouraged her to strike at him again, and when she did, he let her drop. She spat at him. Her last blurred, collapsing image was of him straddling her, one fist raised like a cobra …_

"I reached the corridor - and took out four guards on the way to Howe's chambers."

Loghain's face crinkled dubiously. Rilian echoed Valendrian's words with no small amount of satisfaction: "We are not _all_ so helpless. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as my father used to say - I reached him, didn't I?"

…_Something choked off her breathing. She snapped awake. Black cloth suffocated her. She struggled, tried to roll over, but she couldn't move. Her entire body was a screaming mass of pain. It was only a little worse where the ropes bit into her wrists and ankles..._

"I found the Arl in his room - counting Tevinter coins. He looked up - drew sword and dagger. I engaged him."

…_One elegant hand rested, with the solicitous touch of friends at sickbeds, on her thigh. There, from her neck on down, lay a nothingness freely possessed by a monster. The pinpoint eyes were dispassionate; her body a slab of meat on a butcher's block that happened to be still breathing…_

"He fought like a rat cornered by a terrier - but he was no match for me. I stuck that arrogant bastard in the gut - it took him a long time to die."

Rilian could almost see it; would have changed, if she could, her very memories. She watched Loghain's face grow darker and darker and smirked: it was the least he deserved after his blind trust had left her there - left his own daughter in that monster's hands! Howe needed some last words, she decided. In truth, she could barely remember anything after that - but Leliana would have told her a villain always made some exposition.

"He spoke to me before he breathed his last."

What last febrile thought would have raced through a mind gone rotten like a piece of old fruit? Ah - she had it! She drew her words out in a sibilant hiss:

"_I…deserved…more…_"

She darted a satisfied glance at Loghain, only to find him glaring at her, weatherbeaten features pinched in a dubious scowl.

"I don't believe a word of it."

Rilian's smile broke open slowly. "Ah - but you can't come up with a better explanation, can you?"

"It's a long march south," was the dour response, "I'll get to the truth eventually."

"It was truth! Told with the lightest touch of necessary artistry."

"Lies, then."

Rilian turned away to hide a grin, wondering how many different tales she could come up with before they reached the horde. Howe could be killed in any number of creative ways. The best part of it was, even if he heard the sordid truth from Anora or Jowan, he would never now believe it.

Several hours later the long baggage train lumbered down, with Arl Eamon leading. The army could sleep soundly; they were in Bann Sighard's territory; Loghain had been careful setting the watches. The following afternoon they reached Rilian's camp.

* * *

Rilian feasted her eyes on the long curve of the Hafter River, enjoying the mingled greens of the metallic water and the scrub along the banks. Higher, further from the sustaining moisture, the hills were dark greens and purples shading into a softly-luminous grey sky. A light rain was falling. They crossed one last hill towards the large valley where she had left Ser Perth in command of the soldiers of Redcliffe and their growing number of refugees. The elderly Bann Temlen commanded his own men.

"You have a sentry out - that much I can approve - but you're too bunched up," Loghain said. Rilian bristled, not liking to hear that analysis from a man used to dealing with experienced - and disciplined - soldiers. Then she remembered that the rebellion must have been every bit as chaotic.

"I'm going to ride ahead," she told him, "To, um, organise things." She could tell from Loghain's expression that her eagerness to see friends and family swirled across her face as clearly as clouds foretold rain, but he made no comment. She nudged Racer's sides and started forward at a gallop, flowing with him like water.

The first of her companions nearly bowled her over as she rounded the bend. Ravenous yelped and ran in delighted circles about horse and rider - Rilian could not stop the silly grin from spreading across her face. Leliana, Wynne and Zevran followed. Her heart leapt - her last sight of the golden assassin had bathed him in lurid tones of blood and fire as he ran towards the ship where Isabella waited to bring the Tevinter captives to safety. His broad grin told her all she needed to know:

"We all made it. Isabella left after I'd seen to - payment." _Of more than one form_, said the gleam in the golden eyes. "All thirty of your folks are here - your cousins are out hunting with the Dalish. Ser Otto is with Ser Perth. And your father sure knows how to feed an army."

Rilian giggled, happiness singing through her. "I bet it beats working for Arl Bryland!" Advancing at a slow canter, she observed gaily, "You're too bunched up - my father and a dozen eggs would turn you all into an omelette! Can't I teach you people anything?"

"Nothing about how to greet a friend, that's for sure! All ten Dalish tribes are here, led by Lanaya; with Mithra commanding the archers. We moored the ship near the Wending Wood - it was the only way to avoid Denerim and Amaranthine forces - and we'd not have made it through without the help of Keeper Velanna and her sister, Seranni. They're here - though I'm not sure how long they'll stay." Rilian remembered Alarith's stories of the Dalish who had helped him on his flight from Tevinter.

"I'd like to meet them." Her happiness became brighter and brighter, as if she were burning. She dismounted and went to Leliana first, exchanging hugs, and then to Wynne. The older woman embraced her - but there was a stiffness to her spine that had not been there before.

"Alistair arrived three days ago - but he left the very next morning: to scout the movements of the horde, he said. Riordan went with him. He told us you had allied with - Teyrn Loghain."

Wynne's voice was soft, but the taint of accusation in it hurt. Rilian reached down, stroked the warm comfort of Ravenous' bristly coat, scratched behind his ears. Her mabari friend gave a deep, contented growl.

"Would it be better if I had killed him? We have an alliance now: eight thousand men, added to our own. We have a chance to save Ferelden!"

"And how many men did the Teyrn have at Ostagar?" asked Wynne, voice dark-laden with bitterness.

"The same number," Rilian answered flatly, "Because, thanks to his retreat, they lived. We could not have won - the darkspawn were too many." _The beacon was delayed..._ "He means the best in the worst he does. I'm just beginning to understand that."

"I can't believe you're defending him!" Rilian was stunned and horrified by the swift wash of troubled concern that raced across the austere features: a face that still bore the elegant lines of the beauty she had been. "Alistair told me he forced you to go to Arl Howe's estate - he still suspects something happened. You're as blinded as the rest of his victims!"

_Blinded - _didn't the Guardian of the Ashes tell _you_ you were merely parroting the Circle's beliefs_? _Rilian nearly blurted - but loyalty and respect stopped the reply at her throat. She swallowed hard, eating words.

"It's my decision."

Her need to command put ice in her tone, solidified it into a barrier between herself and her friend, and she didn't know how to call the words back. She reached out. Wynne was already turning. Rilian was left standing, starkly, hand outstretched. She reached to lean absently against a moss-covered boulder. Its ancient, grey solidity seemed to mock anything as ephemeral as grief.

What she'd done was right. So why did she feel such a tearing sense of loss? Why had she never wondered what it cost to be right?

The dull silence held nothing but the many sounds of the rain and the rhythmic rumble of pounding feet. She could hear Loghain's army approach like imminent thunder. Softly, she said, "I think I like it better this way. Everything misted and uncertain. It's as though the rain wants to absorb the conflict; even the Blight."

"It does change the way things look," Leliana agreed, "The subtle colour - the effects of flat, universal light - have their own beauty. It's not obvious - you have to look for it."

Leliana's whimsical, affectionate talk began to relax Rilian's knotted muscles - soothed her pain in ways she didn't even consciously realise. Neither Leliana nor Zevran would ever ask about her time in Howe's estate - just as she had waited until they were ready to tell her their own stories. She was startled when Zevran approached her - more serious than she had ever seen him. She caught Leliana's silent plea with a pang of sharp, anticipatory knowing.

"This is about Alistair, isn't it? Is he alright? Is he hurt?"

Leliana said delicately, "When he rode away from camp, so angry so - troubled, some people wondered about it. Some made up stories to suit their own standards."

Rilian had not grown up in the Alienage for nothing. "Stories?" she asked quietly, her gaze seeking the southern lands, as if she could pierce the rain-washed distance and find him, "Or story?"

Leliana understood. Stories meant gossip, uncertainty. One story meant a root somewhere - a lie, perhaps, but a lie people agreed on. Maybe for a reason.

"When you hear, you'll know it's a lie," Zevran told her, "The rumour says Morrigan made a move on Alistair, and when he regretted what he'd done, he left. See how stupid it is? Just don't lose your temper. And don't let him, either, when he gets back."

Rilian jerked, like a cat stepping on a thorn. The words were a knife to her windpipe; her breath caught. Her first, instinctive words shot the messenger:

"I don't think _you're_ in much position to give out advice on how to deal with relationships."

Zevran went carefully still, expressionless.

"Oh, Zevran." Rilian hung her head, tried to shake away a sudden rush of burning tears. "I'm so sorry. What a bitchy thing to say! I wasn't thinking..." Vividly, as if it had happened yesterday, she heard the normally light, teasing voice - a voice made for playful smut as Leliana's was for song- turn sombre; heard him draw the story of Rinna out like an arrow from a wound, wet with his blood. How could she have _said_ such a thing...

"Do not worry, my fair Warden. I can imagine the heat you got from Alistair. You're wound about four turns too tight - allow me to demonstrate the kind of massage skills one only learns growing up in an Antivan whorehouse..." The slender, supple fingers waggled suggestively.

Rilian made a sound half-way between a laugh and a hiccup. She took the hands and squeezed affectionately, trying to convey the gratitude her voice could not. She startled herself with a sharp, false smile and an offhand manner so artificial it made her throat catch: "We'll sort it all out, me and Alistair. For now, we have work. I must speak to Ser Perth and the Dalish leaders, integrate our troops with Loghain's men. And I need to see what sort of stores we have. No-one goes hungry in this outfit..." Hands working in eager circles, Rilian's bright mood was partially restored.

Leliana and Zevran looked at her with the slightly tolerant expressions of artists listening to a soldier talk shop. Unwilling to see the matter end with the most important aspect ignored, Leliana cheerfully brushed aside such inconsequentials:

"Alistair loves you. What lie, what tale, can darken that?"

"I hurt him a lot."

The rain melded with the heat and smoke of campfires, creating a mist that transmuted the green-and-grey distance to a veiled insubstantiality. It curled around hollows and valleys, pale against the silvery wet sky. Closer at hand, it was alive, dancing around them before shimmering away to nothingness. Ravenous settled against Rilian, his warm breath creating ripples. Racer snorted, creating another small cloud, this one swift and boiling, disappearing like curling smoke.

Leliana smiled softly, her gentle sympathy warm against the cooling breeze. "You and Alistair are like us right now - finding your way in the mist. You two hit a tree. You've got to get past that. Remember what you told me: it's going to be alright..."

"... long as we stick together," Rilian finished for her. She extended an arm, gave Leliana a grateful hug, felt her old smile ease onto her face as she met Zevran's eyes. "Come on, I'll race you back to camp..."

It wasn't much of a race: Rilian was leading her horse, while Ravenous bounded in circles around them. Rilian scratched behind the alert ears and he wagged his short, stubby tail. Zevran shot the mabari a wary look: "I found a trail of dog drool in my pack this morning. Not that I like to make accusations - and I certainly appreciate the artistry of a good burgle - but leaving all that drool as evidence? Sloppy..."

The valley was nestled into the pale curve of the Hafter River. The Redcliffe soldiers and Bann Temlen's men had spread out from there to the eastern foothills. On Ser Perth and Sten's advice, the first thing Rilian had done was order a slit trench dug at its edge; no soldier with any field experience would let his men foul their own camp.

The mass of leather tents covered the dark green ground like some lumpy, dun-coloured carpet. The smoke of cook-fires was rising, with here and there a spurt of flame. Servants and refugees lived in a workmanlike shanty town of tents, lean-tos and propped upturned carts. The air smelled of rain, crushed wet sage, grilling fish, horses, and leather. The tall chestnut-haired knight strode towards them, eyes lit with joy and a kind of fervour that brushed her mind with faint unease. The same look had shone in Leliana's eyes when she asked to join them - but Leliana's faith was in their quest, not in Rilian personally. The view from the pedestal was a dizzying drop, and the guilty knowledge that her own white lie about the amulets had started this made her more afraid of failing him.

"Warden!" the young man breathed - and the look in the bright brown eyes was of faith fulfilled, "I knew you would succeed. You set out to bring us allies; and Riordan tells me you have joined forces with Teyrn Loghain..."

A thought struck Rilian and she bit her lip. Wynne had not mentioned Jowan. She had sent him ahead to get him out of the Chantry's orbit - but Ser Perth was bone-loyal to Arl Eamon...

"I sent the Wardens' newest recruit ahead with Riordan," she said, "Is Jowan here?" It was a stretch to call Jowan a recruit - Riordan had found the Wardens' quarters at the palace empty of all Joining supplies - but she would give him what amnesty she could.

Ser Perth's young face crinkled, as if fearing disapproval. "I - was uneasy leaving the Blood Mage entirely unsupervised. I asked Ser Otto to guard him - and to protect him, if need be. Did I do wrong?"

Rilian's smile broke open slowly: shining, totally delighted. She could not have explained that her pleasure was in this man seeing Ser Otto's worth as a Templar, after his fellows had written him off. "You did absolutely right."

Rilian walked through the camp, her friends beside her, refused the attentions of a squire and fed, watered and rubbed down Racer herself. She left the warhorse tethered by the stream, and found Jowan and Ser Otto sat over a game of chess. In the Alienage, Ser Otto had taught her the game, and it had amazed her that he could play from memory, without being able to see the board. A young man's face beneath the burned, scarred scalp and blinded eyes: but she couldn't see him in that way. What she saw was courage, singleness of purpose, youth and strength and joy. Nearly all the men raced to be near her - she spoke to them all, but at the end turned to Ser Perth and asked, "Where are the Dalish?"

Ser Perth explained that the Elves had made camp in the forest over Tarcaisne Ridge: the two forces were clumped separately like birds of different species, not really belonging to the same army at all. Rilian said:

"Send a messenger to the tribes: have them bring ten of the most likely leaders here. Within one hour I want our forces - humans and Elves - and the Teyrn's formed up in the valley - we can't plan anything until we know what we have to work with. Our first requirement is some organisation." She heard the cold precision in her voice and was repelled by it. Ser Perth reacted too. After a moment of surprise, he saluted.

"Yes, Warden-Commander."

The title set off a complex series of disquieting emotions. She had only just begun to discover Rilian Tabris - she had no idea who the Warden-Commander was.

Was this what the title meant: this steel-souled woman who ignored the love of friends in the name of authority? During her quests with her companions she'd led, not ordered; if they followed her, it was because they were all fighting the same fight, for the same goals. She would rather have remained the favourite child at a family gathering, responsible for no more than her eight companions, or alone with Ravenous and her Warden senses. All this - this responsibility for leading thousands of men, of organization, bringing them to the peak of their individual and combined strengths, knowing she must throw them into battle and not all of them would survive - this was something she wasn't ready for, even if she had a General to help her. It never occurred to her to consider throwing the tough decisions on Loghain's shoulders, any more than she had tried to avoid responsibility for the Anvil. In her mind, the military experience and strategy were Loghain's; the decisions must be her own. For a devastating moment, she thought of Wynne - gentle, motherly Wynne - turning away from her. Had Duncan ever found himself standing alone against those he was trying to protect? Loghain must have done after Ostagar... For the first time, Rilian had an intimation of the separation a leader must work within; the intense desolation of command.

She, Leliana and Zevran headed up the trail to the peak of Tarcaisne Ridge. The view from the top was magnificent: on the eastern side the river encircled the camp like a sickle blade; the cooking fires were glimmering points of red light. On the western side was the green-black backdrop of forested mountainside, gilded by the rain, as though the Maker had carpeted the world in emerald and silver. Oghren and Sten were camped here; it was the perfect vantage point. Rilian was nearly bowled over by what looked like a fiery beard on legs: "Well, shave my back and call me an Elf - it _is_ you!" She hugged him back: the miasma of ale, sweat as strong as a horse's, and other, less savoury, aromas was comfortingly familiar. Sten merely nodded, but the violet eyes that shone from the carved obsidian face held a quiet satisfaction.

Rilian looked around the camp, amber eyes seeking, the muscles of her back tightening unconsciously. There was one other person here. The brilliant feral Morrigan was sitting as she always did, in a secluded spot away from the others, stark tree branches giving privacy. Morrigan had chosen her spot well: a gravelly rock pool glittered in the rain-washed light; droplets making tiny coloured explosions along the surface. Fed by a spring, the stream eventually trickled into the river below. Rilian started forward with studied nonchalance, trying to avoid awareness of the weight of Leliana and Zevran's stares. The nerves along her spine prickled. She found Morrigan bent over a bowl of herbs with the tense poise of a cat. Her ragged robes hung about her like black cobwebs; her skin so pale it was luminous in the yellowish bruise of light. The narrowed lupine eyes were full of secrets; and was it just her imagination that endowed the beautiful face with a preening gloss of satisfaction? But Rilian remembered her after Flemeth's death: her hands, white and erratic; the cut-glass sharpness of her face drawn into lines of tentative friendship, wavering and unsure as though seen through water as they exchanged confidences never before shared. Morrigan who met every danger with wild power and cool courage and dark, sarcastic wit. Wynne and Leliana had coached her in language, history, song - but it had been Morrigan who had taught her how to meet pain with gallows humour: an invaluable lesson for any soldier. The memories rose like golden bubbles, conquered tension and distrust: a smile eased across the taut coldness of her face like green shoots breaking through snow.

"I thought we'd gotten into the habit of sharing food," she said, "Come on - don't stand on ceremony. Afterwards, we'll all meet in the main camp - there are things we need to talk about. War plans: I have some ideas. Secret stuff - you won't believe it!" In spite of herself, enthusiasm bubbled through.

Morrigan's strange eyes widened almost imperceptibly. "Then - you did not approach to discuss the rumours?" There was the faintest tinge of petulance in the hard clear voice: she seemed both relieved and vaguely affronted that something else could occupy the lion's share of Rilian's attention. Rilian bit down on her lip to hide a smile, remembering her own cattiness with Anora - how she had spoiled for a good, wholesome woman-to-woman challenge. Had she really seemed so childish? Had the strange friendship she'd forged with the Queen changed her?

She drew a deep breath, squared her shoulders, forced a reassuring smile that felt like something twisting across her face. "What happened at the Landsmeet was my decision - none of that is your fault." _Did he really go to you afterwards... _Rilian swallowed the question like poison. It was pride as much as friendship; she could not bring herself to ask this too-beautiful woman for reassurance. Her next words were effortful but sincere: "As for the rumours - I trust you both. People talk all the time - we won't worry about it."

"You are not worried?"

Damn her - she was not making this easy! Rilian held on to her good humour the way the small, wind-blasted plants clung to the stark cliff-face. "I was upset when I heard them, that's for sure," she said carefully, "But what happens between Alistair and me is entirely our doing. You're like my sister - you said it yourself."

The hard face - its cheekbones so sharp they could probably cut through steel - softened imperceptibly. "Do you think this is the way sisters argue?"

The smile that had felt like a crack along a porcelain vase became genuine. "Well, you're nothing like my cousin Shianni but - yes, I think it is. Come on, Witch of the Wilds - I need you." Her grin was open confession - and open challenge.

Rilian held out her hand and Morrigan took it, her fingers curling like languid petals around Rilian's hardened palm. Unconsciously, the witch's other hand slid down to cup the taut whiteness of her belly like a blind cave-creature seeking nourishment. Rilian avoided looking: Morrigan's taste in clothing was unique; what she was - or wasn't - wearing left very little to the imagination. Enchantment made the artfully arranged beads and feathers and ghost-light rags solid as armour.

"You are right in that, Warden - you do need me. More than you realise." Strange, sombre laughter raised tiny hairs on the back of Rilian's neck. She wished the light were good enough to study the face of a woman who could warp the sound of merriment, make the ancient mist-shrouded mountainside echo with buried loneliness.

Morrigan said nothing as she joined the others - Zevran and Leliana conquered curiosity with tact. In a way, Morrigan was always alone, even in company - there was some gulf the others could not cross; some unhealed wound. Instinct told her it had to do with the ancient, knowing, cruel hag now buried in the Korcari Wilds. Rilian drew her out as much as she could - to her, as to Leliana, silence was unnatural. It was Sten who had shown her it could also be comfortable; that friendships could be forged without chatter. The five huddled together over a meal of bread, cheese and salted meat flavoured with pepper. Its sharp, mouth-watering scent saturated the air. Ravenous begged with silent eloquence. She gave him the lion's share, then sliced up leaf-thin bits for a pair of jewel-feathered birds fluttering eagerly around. They formed a brilliant squawking cloud as she flipped morsels that were deftly taken in mid-air. Sten frowned. "It's bad enough you spoil the mabari; you shouldn't spoil the birds too."

Rilian grinned. "There's no harm in some fun."

The stolid, unchanging features managed to convey Sten's opinion of such frivolity. "It's a good thing I know you're not as callow as you look."

"_Callow_?"

"You seem surprised. You must have heard this before."

Rilian shrugged and flipped another titbit to her grateful suppliants. "And I'm sure I'll be hearing it again - from the Banns at the War Council. I'd like you to be there - you and the Dalish leaders and Ser Perth."

"As you wish. But the burden of leadership is yours."

It was so close to Rilian's own thoughts that she blinked, startled.

"If you were a simple power-seeker, it wouldn't bother you. As it is, I expect it to kill you." That last came with a dismissive nonchalance that snapped Rilian's head around. "There's something eating your mind: something that you fear more than defeat, more than death. I don't understand it - I do know that I will follow you. You gave me more than life."

Asala glittered in the rain, sleek and iridescent.

"You owe me nothing."

"No-one spoke of debts." Sten's voice sharpened. "I'm grateful to you - but not so grateful that I live for you. I live as I choose, Kadan - and I choose to fight at your side."

Rilian's smile started as a slight movement of her lips, spread to illuminate her entire face.

"I won't talk about this again," Sten promised gruffly, "Once is enough. But I will say almost everyone here feels exactly the same."

There seemed to be nothing Rilian could say to that; her lower lip quirked oddly. Not having Leliana's way with words, she covered the moment by opening her pack and sharing out a fragrant sachet she had bought in Denerim. Soon the subtle, spicy aroma of Seheron tea leaves filled the camp. All five shared the steaming mugs, and the cookies Leliana had brought. Quietly, the beautiful Orlesian brought her lute, played notes that reached into Rilian's heart. The words to "Alindra And Her Soldier" melded with dreams, to seek the stars:

…_How often she has gazed from castle windows all  
And watched the daylight passing within her captive wall  
With no one to heed her call_

_The evening hour is fading within the dwindling sun_  
_And in a lonely moment, those embers will be gone_  
_And the last of all the young birds flown_

_Her days of precious freedom, forfeited long before_  
_To live such fruitless years behind a guarded door_  
_But those days will last no more_

_Tomorrow, at this hour, she will be far away_

_Her trail of tears as starlight at the dimming of the day…  
_

Rilian didn't open her eyes until the last haunting echo died to silence. For several heartbeats she cherished the notes, savouring until they were gone, trying to tell herself they remained when she knew better. Sometimes, Leliana's voice was the only thing that silenced the faint chittering that teased the corners of her mind, the black web connecting her with the writhing, teeming horde. The little group remained silent, sharing wordless communion. The tinge of melancholy - the restless change in the air - was offset by the excitement of new challenges. At last, they stood. Leliana and Zevran volunteered to remain on watch; Sten and Morrigan headed toward the main camp. Quietly, Rilian said: "I'll join you shortly - I'm going to speak to the Dalish." She called for Ravenous and the two headed down the trail.

The verdant forest reached to embrace her. The air sang with primal vitality; Rilian drew in greedy lungfuls. Ravenous rose on his hind legs, almost bowling her over, and planted a wet lick on her cheek. Her thin, sinewy arm curled around the muscled neck and shoulders in an impulsive hug. "Some fierce wardog. You're a big old pussycat. I'm supposed to protect you, is that it?" A happy bark was clear agreement. She scratched behind the alert ears, and almost laughed out loud at the way he accepted it, yet still watched their surroundings with his full attention. Between the base of the ridge and the forest that encroached like a creeping greenish dark, whispering secrets, was a small stretch of flat ground; bare earth and flattened scrub, worn by wagons. Emissary Caron Mahariel and his guards called greetings. Rilian joined them, caught up with news, performed a quick mental inventory of supplies - caught her breath at the sight beyond. A thing of grace and power, of curving arcs and soaring spires and proudly billowing sails. A wagon hitched to the stars... They were bright as stars: the six halla who pulled the half-carriage, half-ship. Seeing her open-mouthed wonder, Emissary Caron laughed gently. "Your first sight of one of our aravels?"

"It's a tale of wonder - my mother's stories - I never thought..." For long moments, Rilian simply gawked; wild, sweet, secret dreams swirling within. When Emissary Caron beckoned her closer the pleasure of discovery added to her joy.

"You have seen we do not make bows the way the shems do: they use wood only; ours are a blend of ironbark, horn and sinew. We use the same materials here. The sails are a weave of parchment, cloth and wax." Rilian hesitantly touched the brightly fluttering material, and had a sense of great strength cloaked in delicacy. Caron laughed boyishly. "You can't tear the stuff with a team of halla, I swear!" Rilian was staring so intently the stationary vessel seemed to waver as though seen through smoke...

_...Anora sent the glider spinning into the night. The parchment caught a gust like a white-winged ship sailing on air..._

Rilian recalled the dream that had morphed to nightmare in Arl Howe's estate: how she had melded with the Archdemon, musculature and skeleton fluidly rearranging themselves until it seemed impossible that she had ever walked on two legs. The aravel shimmered in her mind: harness turned to rigging - curving wood becoming flat and sleek and arrow-sharp - sails becoming wings...

"Who are your crafters?" she blurted.

"Among my tribe, Master Ilen is our finest. Master Varathorn you know: he told us how you ended Witherfang's curse."

"I should like to meet with them." Rilian clapped her hands in glee. Caron nodded, beaming, infected by her enthusiasm. "If what I have in mind works, the Wardens will fly again. Ancient Elven lore and a forward-thinking Queen: what a combination!"

_Author's Note: this is one third of what I planned to fit into Chapter Ten – 30 000 words would have been indigestible! Part 2: Rilian's reunion with her family, the War Council, and the Battle of Ostagar should be up in a few days :)_

_The idea of using Dworkin's explosives in the original campaign was first done by Arsinoe in the excellent "Victory at Ostagar". It makes perfect sense. _

_"Alindra And Her Soldier" is the haunting "Fotheringay" by Fairport Convention - only the last line is changed, to fit Leliana's story._

_Hi to my amazing reviewers: icey cold, Arsinoe, Shakespira, Analect, lisakodysam, ArtemysFayr, Josie Lange, Persephone, mutive, mousetalker, Enaid Aderyn, Papillon2, Rancho Relaxo, sleepyowlet, Nithu, Eva Galana and Forestnymphe. You guys make my day :)_

_Happy Christmas!_


	11. Chapter 11: No Empty Chairs

The forest was earth and rain scented. Fat, glossy leaves formed a sheltering cowl that closed out the world beyond; created dark-golden shadows and dim half-light and a thousand mysterious echoes. Despite youthful dreams, it was the first time Cyrion had entered the Dalish camp: keeping the shem army in supplies was an exhausting, satisfying, full-time occupation. He'd come to fetch his nephew and niece for his daughter's homecoming. Strange to think of this camp as home - perhaps it was true what they said of his people: they could put down roots anywhere. Their community was each other, not crumbling bricks and mortar. Shianni bent to study an unfamiliar footprint. Her new Dalish leather encircled her city-pale skin like some alien armadillo, yet her chin jutted with familiar determination. Her softly-curved oval face held an elemental, feminine strength: a small, compact, pragmatic survivor. After the kidnapping, he had wept internal tears heavy as mercury. She had been changed forever - and even though they had kept what happened secret, her smouldering rage had marked her dangerous as brightly as the panther. She would not keep her head down, and he had waited, helpless dread curdling his stomach, for her to anger the wrong guard. He had seen Adaia mutilated in the square; he could not have lived through that again. Now the old ways were reversed - the defiance that had once been a dangerous beacon had found its berth. This new world was open for her young strength to battle and triumph in; she was discovering wings, like a caged bird set free. In the short time they'd been here she'd already picked up an impressive amount of Dalish lore. Even to Cyrion's old eyes, the footprint stood out, because the markings were of a very strange type of boot.

"I'd say it belonged to a shem nobleman," Shianni said, face wrinkling in involuntary distaste, "Except that this isn't a large person - the foot's not much bigger than mine."

"Some people would question that conclusion," said Soris, straight-faced. He was standing propped against an ancient oak, one knee bent in studied casualness, his new bow an awkward weight across his shoulders. Freed from accusatory whispers, the hangdog, sullen air had vanished; he was looking around with the nervous glee of a young man dropped into an adventure too big for him. Shianni swatted the back of his head.

"Some people might mourn a man who made snotty remarks about the size of a woman's foot. I wouldn't."

The second young man - whose dark braids and tattoos and aura of tense alertness marked him as different to Soris as a wild cat from tame - turned back. He leaned over the footprint; then bent to study the graceful curve of Shianni's jaw. Nonplussed by the scrutiny, a faint blush worked its way up her neck.

"What are you doing?"

"Watching the points grow on your ears," he teased. She dug an elbow into his ribs.

"Mind you," Shianni said, her impish features creasing into a rueful smile that could not quite hide pride, "If anyone back home had ever told me I'd see a day when I walked fifteen miles before dinner, I'd have said they were blind drunk."

"Wish I was!" Soris grumbled. He shot his uncle a look of mock outrage. "I don't see why you don't just feed us oats and be done with it. Maybe then we'd get a rubdown, like real horses."

Cyrion pursed his lips judiciously. "Hmm - oats. I wonder..." Striving to maintain an air of solemn propriety, he could not help the little ripple of delight that eased a smile onto his worn face. "No: for my little girl I'm planning a dinner of freshly grilled fish, and I defy any shem noble to find better!"

The dark-braided young man nodded sagely. "Comes of catching the right fish - took me years to learn how..."

Cyrion bristled. He had been eying Cale Mahariel dubiously since the young hunter had started training Shianni. On the one hand, Shianni was laughing as he had feared he'd never hear her laugh again. On the other, she was as much a daughter to him as Rilian, and his protective instincts had gone into overdrive...

"Uncle has a secret blend for the cure," Shianni said quickly. "Makes all the difference. Nothing like it." A grey-and-black bird ghosted through trees to land sideways on a huge trunk. The deeply fissured bark, cracked like Cyrion's old skin, provided excellent footholds for the tiny, needled feet. It squawked agreement.

The strange footprints pattered in a winding trail deeper into the forest, towards the clearing where the Elders gathered and the craftsmen practiced the ancient mysteries. They were easy to follow: particularly since they were accompanied by the tracks of a large four-legged creature. When Cyrion saw it he gestured sharply, warning his niece and nephew to stay back. Soris didn't need telling twice; headstrong Shianni took further steps - only to listen when Cale gave her the same advice. Silent, feral, the young hunter moved forward. Cyrion couldn't help the strong impression that with each noiseless step, he grew beyond himself; became spirit-like. Shadows moved to shroud him. He and the two youngsters followed at a cautious distance. Cyrion could not help thinking that the stranger was making no effort at all to be stealthy; aside from anything else, through the dark stripes of leaves and branches, he caught glimpses of brilliant red. The armoured figure was gilded like a bird of paradise. The four-legged creature was a kind of dog: a fierce, war-painted monstrosity such as he'd seen the shem knight Ser Perth with. He was just about to call to Cale that the person had to be with their own army when an achingly familiar voice sang out. The Dalish hunter answered with fierce chagrin:

"You couldn't have heard me coming."

"I didn't," Cyrion's little girl called gaily, "But Ravenous did."

"Ah," said the faintly sour tone, "So that is one of the domesticated wolves the shemlen tainted with their magic."

A low growl resounded oddly through the trees.

"Don't listen to the mean Dalish, Ravenous!"

Two whirlwinds flowed past Cyrion: Shianni and Soris were racing ahead. Soon the two of them and Rilian were tangled in a whooping, tearful embrace. Cyrion approached more slowly, his old heart pounding. He stopped, and Rilian saw him.

Rilian had Shianni's colouring, but was several inches taller. Lean where Shianni was slender; gawky where Shianni was graceful. Her angular face, delicate and fierce as a hawk's, swirled through a panoply of emotions as brightly radiant as the iridescence of oil on water. All her life Cyrion had felt simultaneously the cosy security of their family and the cold menace outside: sickness, cold, the shem landlord's ravaging rent, and stood between. He still saw her as all the selves she'd been: the six-year old girl with pigtails and skinned knees - the scowling adolescent, all elbows and feet, staring down at the worn wood of their table in half-defiant shame: "She sacked me - for nothing! All I did was tell her she had a voice that could strip paint. Well, if _she's_ a lady I reckon so am I..." - the young bride, the glittering beaded whiteness of her wedding dress stretched tight over the taut muscles of her shoulders and sinewy dockworker's arms...the daughter he had not been able to protect.

Time collapsed in a single shuddering instant. The immaculately-swept platform. Friends and family dressed in their wedding best. The spring leaves of the Vhenadahl. Bann Vaughan and his guards, smug cruelty coating their skin with thick, sour-milk stink. The pitiless brutality of choice: resist, and the women would die as Adaia had done; do nothing, and the dark night would be followed by deep womanhood joys: marriage, children - a whole lifetime to forget... So he had watched, and felt his own shame, his blood screaming the message from the deep centre of his heart where father and child were bound in ancient ties.

The two held each other. Cyrion felt the strange reptilian armour meet his own brittle age. Rilian stood half-a-head taller, but craned her head to rest it on his shoulder, gawky as an injured heron. He stroked the softness of her wavy hair; felt the hardness of the bone beneath. Her shoulders were shaking.

"It's alright, love," he murmured, and all the times he'd said that to her (skinned knees, a bump on the head, the girls who called her "part-shem") coalesced in a single moment so that the true, ancient, dumb weight of his love surrounded her.

Shianni had brought out a brightly fluttering cloth from her backpack: it winked, blazing as a kingfisher.

"What's that?" Rilian asked, eyes widening.

Shianni unfurled the magnificent scarlet cloak. Made of the same waterproof material as the Dalish cloth, it carried the marks of Shianni's expert embroidery on the back: a golden rendition of a swift-winged ship and billowing sails.

"To celebrate our rescue," she explained, dropping the cloak about Rilian's shoulders. "You helped, of course, by providing such a nice match in armour!"

"Oh Shianni - it's so beautiful!"

"Uncle tells me you're calling a War Council with those shems you're commanding," Shianni said briskly. "I won't let you show up looking scruffy. You'll wear the cloak; I'll braid your hair like mine. We'll show them Elven women's pride. Give me those weapons: I'll have someone polish them. I'll clean your armour too. Soris will carry it." As she spoke she fetched oil and a soft cloth from her backpack.

Looking helplessly at a grinning Soris, Rilian stammered unsuccessfully at response.

"Amazing," Soris drawled, looking from dazed Rilian to determined Shianni. "Ever since you decided Cale is okay, you've become completely domestic."

"Dome - _what_?" Shianni's eyes widened. Nostrils flared. She shook the cloth in Soris' face. "How'd you like this rag shoved up your nose?"

Rilian was looking from Shianni to Cale. A radiant grin broke open slowly. Shianni met her eyes with silent plea. For a moment, it looked as though nosiness was going to override tact. Then Rilian reluctantly closed her mouth over delighted curiosity, her glance telling Shianni she would ask as soon as they were alone. She greeted Cale with the kind of old-fashioned grace only found in Mother Boann's books: "I'm honoured the Dalish stand with us against the Blight. I hear you were the first to pledge the archers of Clan Mahariel to Keeper Lanaya's banner."

"I didn't do it for the shems, or for ancient treaties with your Order, Warden. Six months ago my lethallin fell to darkspawn. When I met him again he was - changed. A Blighted creature. That's why I do this." His look for Shianni told them he might have other reasons too.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Rilian told him quietly, "And grateful for your help."

She looked a little hesitantly at Shianni as her cousin moved to unbuckle the straps of her breastplate. "You shouldn't be doing this. I mean - but for a twist of fate it would have been you who got conscripted, and me who..."

"Don't say it!" said Shianni, amber eyes wide in sudden fright, "You don't know..." She caught herself, regained control. "Besides, it wouldn't have happened to me. The way you've forged alliances, the story of the dragon... I hate to say it, because it'll go to your head, but you're different: special. If you can't see that, you're just being stupid."

Rilian shifted uncomfortably. "Special or stupid: make up your mind."

"Hmm - how about _specially stupid_." Rilian gave her a playful shove, looking relieved to be back on familiar ground. "Besides," Shianni went on tartly, "who washed your work clothes when you came back smelling of brine and sewage? Who did your hair?" Rilian shuffled shamefacedly, recognising she had been bested.

Cyrion looked from his nephew and niece to his tall, splendid daughter, standing like young spring amid the glowing colours of autumn. He could have understood the wonder of an ordinary drake who'd sired a strange, intrepid swan. But Rilian was no changeling. Her fiery, outspoken temper was Shianni's: they'd inherited it from his mother. She shared that indefinable quality that had made people listen to Adaia's stories. Her idealism belonged to the young man who had once dreamed of finding the Dalish. Yet some chance juxtaposition of those qualities had created something new. He had dreamed of escaping high stone walls; Adaia had sought flight through song. Their daughter tried to make the outside world conform to inward dreams. Her translucent eyes had the effect of looking straight through the obvious to something beyond, then reflecting it outward. She altered the scheme of any picture she made a part of by contributing new ideas. He did not understand her vision - only that the strange sight of Elves and shems working together was part of it. Something had changed her, even from the girl he had seen at the rescue: a new crease was drawn across her forehead; two tiny lines came down between her feathery red brows. Those flared upward, like a hawk's spread wings. Looking at her, he had a storm-sense of headlong, unpreventable consequence. He felt Rilian was riding it, like the crest of a wave.

He would never again be able to protect her. He could only work at what he did best. If his daughter and her army came to harm, it would not be for lack of eating properly.

* * *

Loghain would not have thought it possible for the Warden to exceed the gaudiness of that Dragonscale armour - until he saw the red cloak and gold stitching. By the Maker, it was Cailan all over again! Her short hair, formerly rough-cut and practical, was teased into a tortuous mass of innumerable tiny braids, tied with coloured ribbons. He had only ever seen the style on Elven women: the servants who had flung themselves at Maric had worn something similar. Why she had chosen to add that impression to the explosion of sartorial excess was beyond him. To add insult to injury, he knew well enough the meaning of the embroidered golden ship: a celebration of the fact that, instead of a Tevinter legion, with its disciplined men, large shields, and twelve-foot long spears so useful for keeping infectious darkspawn at bay, they now had thirty dispossessed Elves. Comment would only invite the observation that if the Banns had tightened their belts he could have bought his mercenaries without selling slaves, so he kept silent. It was true enough that while he and Anora had sold all they could, they were in the minority - and that his grip on the Bannorn had been too tenuous to force the issue. The only noble who had given as much to the war effort had been Rendon Howe, and Loghain was still fuming over the Warden's latest version of his death - which had involved him falling foul of a new torture device: a tilting table that had sent him backwards into a hidden chamber, whereupon his own cook had made him into... All the ludicrous tale proved was that the Warden had a ghoulish imagination, and took a childish delight in irritating him.

Loghain's disapproval of the Warden did not extend to the magnificent creature beside her: the mabari who had - Maker knew why - thought her worthy of imprinting. Every good Ferelden knew it was the dog who chose its master and not the other way round. He had the briefest sensory memory of melting brown eyes and steadfast loyalty. Absently, he ran a callused hand about the square, wiry-coated head. The dozing dog instantly recognised the touch as not his master's. He jerked awake. An angry snarl raised his lip as he turned toward the offensive liberty. Sensing a respect and rapport he was not used to from the Warden's other companions, he stopped, confused. The great head swung towards the Warden - who was grinning, amused by the byplay - then back to Loghain. A wag of the stubby tail served as apology. Seeing the mass of men pour onto the valley like dun-coloured, pragmatic pebbles onto a beach full of randomly-arrayed shells, the mabari yipped and ran in circles, chasing his tail. The Warden waved a hand, the exuberant gesture knocking against Loghain's gauntlet.

"See the two armies meet: he's nervous and excited."

"And you?"

The remark acted on her like a hot needle; she stiffened at the condescension, parade-ground straight.

"Excited, only. I've sent for the Dalish command, and told them I want the archers formed up in the valley. All my companions are here, except for two scouts on the ridge. You and I and Cauthrien can organize the evening turn-out. We'll discuss supplies at the War Council; I'm calling one in an hour."

Loghain hid his smile: she had learned over the last few days, and had the right instincts. The only thing he would add was scouts at the mouth of the valley, and atop the westernmost hills of Dragon's Peak.

A high, ululating cheer cut across his thoughts. Hackles raised with the memory of the arrows that had caught him and Maric unawares in the Korcari Wilds, he turned to see the Dalish approach, skylined at the crest of the ridge. Descending, they were a dark, bristling mass over purple-brown scrub. The men in the valley - both the Warden's and his own - shifted nervously. The Warden waved in delight and started forward to meet them. If the Bastard Prince had suddenly arrived and professed his undying love, she could not have glowed more brilliantly. Her enthusiasm was a little too bright for the gravity of the campaign, but he could understand the pleasure of forging disparate elements into a competent whole, of organisation, of making order out of chaos. He turned away to speak to Cauthrien, and calm his own men. There was a holiday atmosphere among the gaggle of refugees: they welcomed Denerim's soldiers like saviours; which, in a sense, they were. The players were different, but the play was a strong echo of the wonderful chaos of the later stage of the rebellion, when volunteers swelled their numbers. Only two incidents marred the smooth, familiar running: the first when the Knight-Commander of Denerim's Templars caught sight of Jowan, and demanded his arrest. He had always disliked Rylock: a thin-lipped termagant all spit and polish, but they needed an army of Templars more than one failed mage. So he did not interfere and the Warden, in animated conversation with two Dalish craftsmen at the other end of camp, did not see it. It was the young man with Jowan - a burned, scarred survivor of some dark magic - who faced her down. Rylock withdrew the demand with an ill grace, on condition that the Templar remained to guard him. The other incident was when the commander of Eamon's knights - a chestnut-haired young fool - refused his command to form up with the rest of the cavalry.

"When the Warden commands it, I will," the young knight said stiffly, "I do not take orders from the man who tried to murder my Lord." The brown eyes held a quality of loyalty usually ascribed to mabari puppies; the long-boned face a sheltered nobility of breeding. Loghain was just about to chew him out when he caught sight of Eamon watching, broad face oozing satisfaction, and had a better idea. Not all Rendon Howe's lessons in guile had been wasted.

"You follow the Warden, you say?" he asked with deceptive mildness.

"The Warden saved my Lord's life - slew the High Dragon - was worthy of the Sacred Ashes," the young man said softly. The fervid wonder in the eyes - the glazed, almost clubbed look - was something he'd seen on the faces of Templars; he'd long ago realised that anything that could so rattle otherwise competent soldiers was downright dangerous. The knight's next words only confirmed it: "Like holy Andraste, she hails from Denerim - freed Tevinter captives - has a voice that throws all the pain of this world up to the Maker..."

Oh please... Loghain had the sudden urge for a sick bucket. Impatiently, he suffered through more blather. No wonder the Warden had such a swollen head.

"...I would die for her."

"In that case," said Loghain, straight-faced, "You ought to be able to trust her judgement in trusting me. It's a poor faith that is shaken by the opinions of - others..."

The young man started - looked guiltily at Arl Eamon and shifted uncomfortably - then made Loghain a bow of apology that contained as many flourishes as an Orlesian's. "You are right, your grace," he said quietly, "I apologize for my stubbornness." He turned sharply, with military precision, and called to his men to form up with the rest of Loghain's cavalry. Loghain smirked; Arl Eamon looked like he'd just swallowed another dose of Jowan's poison.

When all Loghain's men were assembled the Warden guided the Dalish to join them. Loghain was impressed by the proud rows of archers - five hundred in all - well knowing how deadly only a few such marksmen could be. His own archers - including his remaining Night Elves - made up a similar number. He considered merging the two forces but decided against it: barriers in language and command structure would weaken the whole, and the strategy he had in mind called for two ranged units anyway.

Organisation finished, Loghain and the Warden met in the middle, in front of the gathered ranks. All units were formed up in the wide valley east of the ridge, beyond the melange of tents, plumes of smoke and trenches dug at the camp's edge. The ground was a misty, rain-washed bowl against the background of the ridge: a series of heavy greens and greys and purples all running into each other like paints dissolved in water. The valley was bordered by the two prongs of the Hafter River. The descending sun turned the water into living gold translucence. The rain rippled the surface, creating darks and lights that undulated in intricate, unceasing patterns.

Loghain strode towards the Warden, his sabatons making deep furrows in the flattened, glistening grass. The gawky, glittering figure faced him, the mabari beside her.

"Anything to report?" she asked.

Loghain decided that the incidents with Rylock and the foolish young knight weren't worth mentioning. "All my men are accounted for, except for two scouts at the mouth of the valley, two at the western edge of Dragon's Peak, and two I sent to relieve your men on the ridge."

A little wrinkle of annoyance formed on the smooth forehead as the Warden realised he did not trust her companions. She opened her mouth - then clamped it shut, probably deciding that her men would be quite happy to come down and join the raucous celebrations springing up among the refugees. She said instead: "I have some thoughts on the tactics you explained to me last night. I should like to see them in practice." Without waiting for his reply she walked over to speak to Cauthrien.

If Redcliffe's knights saw the Warden as Andraste reborn, Loghain's veterans saw her as a young upstart and grumbled loudly. Cauthrien - a consummate professional with no time for posturing - supported the Warden. Her commands came to Loghain, clipped and precise, disdainful of the parade-ground bellowing typical of other commanders. Loghain's infantry moved like a well-oiled machine, roughly practical armour glimmering in the rain like fish-scales. Spray from the water-polished field swirled around their boots; the noise of pounding feet created a storm-sense. Loghain's four units of pikemen wheeled and counter-marched, their twenty-foot long weapons graded so that the points of three ranks should strike the enemy in a single line. They formed a defensive square, inside which mages could cast with impunity, glinting points bristling all around like some iron hedgehog. These disciplined troops had turned the tide at the Battle of River Dane; pikemen were the bane of cavalry. Though generally of less use against infantry, Loghain intended to use them as a wall to funnel the darkspawn battlerush into the deadfall where he wanted them to go. The majority of the infantry wielded sword and shield: grim, hard fighters formed a small core of professionals, padded with farmer levies and militia.

The small number of cavalry did their combat exercises. In Orlais the cavalry were shock troops: an iron fist that smashed through enemy lines. When heavily-armoured chevaliers clambered aboard a horse, it was to ride over someone, not around him. During the rebellion, their own small bands of horsemen had had to develop different tactics. Rowan had pioneered the principle of lightning manoeuvre: strike and retreat, wheel and strike again. Her riders had charged as units, goring the Orlesians. As swiftly as they'd attacked, they would retreat. The chevaliers, invariably, had cheered and given chase, only to be struck from a different direction by a different unit. This fleet swirl had offset the Orlesians' overwhelming superiority of numbers. It was an open question whether horses could be made to charge darkspawn - but then, trained mounts with skilled riders would charge pikemen. A narrow funnel, such as a valley or gorge, would afford no sideways manoeuvre. Horses followed the herd instinct - if those at the back were charging, there must be danger behind them - skilled riders could drive them in the right direction. If the terrain did not lend itself, the cavalry would still benefit from increased mobility before dismounting to fight on foot.

After a strenuous hour, the veterans who beforehand had grumbled loudest jeered at raw men's complaints: the youngster might have sweated them, but they'd sweat a lot worse facing darkspawn unprepared. The Hero of River Dane trusted her; that was good enough for them.

The Warden bounced over to him, feet hardly seeming to make an impression on the ground. "They're shaping quite well," she told him; in the lambent eyes he saw the message: "and they know now who's in command." It didn't bother him: all his life he'd been the backbone of quixotic, charismatic leaders who had not an ounce of commonsense between them - why should that change now? Besides, the Warden differed from Cailan in one crucial respect: she'd spent the whole of last night listening to his ideas with fierce concentration and the look of someone seeing treasures poured into her fingers. She could never have planned the complex strategies he'd gone over - much less executed them - but she recognized their worth, and trusted him completely. "Except the Howe levies," she added - and Loghain saw she could at least tell incompetence when she saw it. Arl Thomas' men had turned out to be something of a disaster, their undisciplined sullenness so pronounced the other soldiers avoided them.

"The rest of the men think them raw hands - and let them know it," Loghain said, "Good rations, no darkspawn yet, yet nothing's right for them. But what are they: soldiers or bridesmaids?"

"We'll change that," the Warden said, almost mischievous in her exuberance and certainty, "Sten of the Beresaad is the best trainer of fighting men that ever lived. The Qunari have an unbelievable knowledge of how other people fight: their tactics, weapons, organisation..." her voice trailed off under Loghain's incredulous glare.

"And you are letting this Qunari get a good look at our defences - organisation - infighting!"

The Warden's eyes flashed. "My choice of allies is non-negotiable," she said coolly.

Loghain raised an eyebrow. "I saw how you "negotiated" mine."

A quirk of the lips - a suppressed smile - met sudden nervous hostility like two contradictory waves colliding. "That had better not be a threat. If any of my allies meet a similar fate to Rendon Howe it won't be enough for you to have an alibi. I'll..."

"Quiet," he snapped.

The Warden bristled like a cat grown to three times its size, arched back and ruffled fur covering stringy scrawniness. The image was underscored by the pointed ears and unblinking amber eyes; if she'd had a tail, she would have lashed it. She was an odd amalgam of feminine vanity and the will and instincts of a fighting man: backbone, bluff, presence. The stiff neck and the straight spine. Whatever it was that made most men concede without testing. Both took an involuntary step forward, the pressure in the air forcing the mabari into a low growl. A murmur built among the watching men. It was absurd to feel challenged by this wisp of a gutter rat, red armour like a lobster shell around a shrimp, ribbons glittering in her braids as though half-a-dozen butterflies had landed; but he could feel his own hackles raised, an old alpha wolf itching to put a nipping youngster in its place. He swallowed his own foolishness. "The men are watching. It does not do to show dissent. I have been honest in my dealings with you, and I tell you now: fighting the Blight is my priority. I'll take no action to threaten that unity. Your allies are my allies; there will be no infighting. After the Blight - I will do whatever it takes to maintain national security. As you told me: when I turn against you, I'll go through the front."

"I see. Thank you for the fair warning. In that case, I'm not worried: cross swords with Sten, and he'll cut you into pieces small enough to fit down a vulture's gullet. Besides," she added gaily, "All he'll be able to report is that we're a nation who defeated a Blight - which no country has ever done, on its own. That'll teach Par Vollen not to mess with us."

Loghain rolled his eyes at the absurd naiveté but made no comment.

The Warden turned to address the men. "You have performed very well; I do not worry about the darkspawn. I am proud to be a free Ferelden, leading free Fereldens. At dawn, we march. Tonight, we celebrate!" She saluted them, and nodded to Cauthrien, who dismissed them. The monochrome ranks broke up into a bright swell of individuals, myriad voices rumbling like the bass section of an orchestra. They streamed towards the camp. A tantalizing smell drifted over from the cook-fires. For Loghain, who had the hearty appetite of farmers and soldiers, it was not before time. The Warden tilted her face upward and sniffed the air. "Mmm. Grilled fish. Garlic. Honey. And…and - yes, pepper…" Moving as if led by the nose, she and the mabari trotted off.

A short while later, a ripple of activity caught Loghain's attention. One of his scouts - a rawboned former refugee named Hawke - was escorting the Orlesian Warden to the command tent. The Orlesian was plastered with travel-dust and smelled acridly of his horse's sweat and his own. Through the mask of dirt shone his eyes, which still held the sardonic glint that set Loghain's teeth on edge. He dismounted with slow grace - age and the torture he had suffered lent a frail brittleness to his movements; yet they still managed to carry a shadow of louche flamboyance. The Warden hurried over, leaving the mabari with a motley group of her companions.

"Riordan!" Her face seemed to come alive then freeze. "Where's Alistair?"

"I sent him ahead to Redcliffe."

"Redcliffe! It's dangerous - the horde…"

"He's riding north-west, across the River Dane, past Kinloch Hold. That's far from the bulk of the horde."

"I need numbers and locations," Loghain said. Without waiting for a reply he turned and strode towards the large command tent. The sharp tannic scent of wet leather melded with the savoury whiff of roast boar and grilled fish. Inside, Arl Eamon had provided a sturdy round table and twelve high-backed chairs - that pretentious Denerim estate had proven good for something. A brazier filled the space with smoky orange light. Someone had had the forethought to provide a pitcher of mulled wine and goblets. The Warden reached for it and poured the Orlesian a generous amount. He finished it in long, grateful gulps, the bluish-white pallor of exhaustion taking on a ruddier tint.

"Loghain?" she asked.

He nodded: "You are a gracious hostess, Warden" - and if she caught the hint of sarcasm she made no comment. She filled Loghain's glass and poured her own, then settled into the chair nearest the brazier. Loghain sat to her right and Riordan her left. The round table was traditional for War Councils, in which all the Banns treated each other as equals, regardless of rank. Loghain cared nothing for the symbolism, only the practicality - it was easier for everyone to study the campaign map. But before he could debrief the Orlesian, the Warden cut in ahead:

"If Alistair rode northwest, he could have stopped here for the night."

The faintest trace of delicate hesitation rippled across the dark, mercurial face. "He - thought it best to hurry. The sooner he can rally the Dwarves of Orzammar and the Circle under Redcliffe's banner, the better." The Warden's face was pale and pinched; her reply seemed to hang on a knife edge. For a moment, Loghain thought she was going to derail an important military discussion with romantic concerns. But she caught herself.

"What have you learned? We're blind, and the horde are moving out there. Give us our sight." She leaned forward, and the light of the brazier lent power to the sharp, seeking expression. Her eyes boiled with shadows, as though viscerally aware of some darkness beyond the muffled, staccato rhythm of rain on tent leather and friendly chaos outside.

The Orlesian raised a flirtatious eyebrow. "Well, I've found them - but I don't think the darkspawn will be satisfied just to be looked at. Before this dance is over, somebody's going to have to kiss somebody."

"You'll pick me the handsomest hurlock, won't you?" the Warden quipped, and she and the Orlesian shared frivolous laughter. Despite his impatience, Loghain appreciated the dark wit: the kind of gallows humour he and Maric had shared through the worst of times. If the Warden could meet thoughts of broodmothers with that, she would probably survive war - or would have done, if not for…

Loghain leaned forward as the Orlesian brought out a long leather tube from his backpack and unrolled a beautifully detailed map of Ferelden, showing the green of hills and valleys, defensible positions, and the darkspawn advance. His eyes devoured the two dark masses: the first curving in a sickle shape from north of Lothering to the western edge of the Drakon River; the second, even larger, directly south of Lake Calenhad. Smaller groups were highlighted along the ridges of the Frostback Mountains, pushing eastward into the Korcari Wilds. Despite himself, Loghain was impressed. He had not trusted the Orlesian, of course - had charged four other men with the same task - but not one had come close to this accuracy and scope. At the thought, a frown followed a well-trodden trail across his forehead, pulling his face into its familiar scowl:

"You could not have covered that ground in the time you had," he said flatly.

The Orlesian looked up. The eyelids were hooded; sharp, seeking pupils glinted from purple-ringed hollows. Loghain met the rapier stare with his own steel menace.

"More Warden secrecy?" he asked - the heavy darkness of his sarcasm intended to remind the Orlesian that he had already revealed the most important truth of all. Riordan's eyes darkened; black dye seeping into quicksilver. The memory of exactly how that information had been forced from him rose in the air like a tangible, thick weight. The water-smooth urbanity wavered and rippled; beneath the wry sardonic wit, pinprick pupils glittered with deep, implacable hatred. There was a twisted, comfortable familiarity to it: Loghain had seen that look in countless Orlesian eyes, usually just before he killed them. But he found himself oddly glad that the shared memory excluded the bright youth sitting between them. As did the knowledge itself, Loghain was sure. The Warden had not known when he spoke to her that first time in Howe's estate. The Wardens were a military order - they could no more tell their young recruits the truth than Loghain could have told the King's men at Ostagar that they were doomed. Or that Arl Rendorn Guerrin could have told _him_ the true nature of his very first mission for the rebellion. The Orlesian intended to be the one - but if he failed they could not take the chance that the Warden or the Bastard Prince might hesitate.

The Orlesian nodded grimly, meeting Loghain's stare with a searing look of loathing and an icy, bleak pride. "We Wardens are more than just soldiers dedicated to fighting darkspawn - as you know. We know them intimately. We are able to touch the group-mind of the horde. It is like - like throwing out strands of a clear web. When darkspawn approach, black ink touches it, colouring the pattern. I ventured close enough to "listen in" as it were."

The look on the Warden's face was that of someone discovering kin - or an invalid meeting a fellow sufferer - "so that is what the feeling is" her eyes said. Pity - a swift, unimportant whisper - trickled across Loghain's thoughts.

"The situation is worse than I feared," the Orlesian continued heavily. "The first wave, past Lothering, number nearly twenty thousand. The second, between the ruins of Ostagar and Redcliffe, almost half as many again."

"Hmm. Maybe one day you'll bring me some cheerful news. Now there's a surprise that could kill a Warden." The two Wardens shared a swift, covert glance that spoke of shared knowledge. The Warden's eyes were shuttered; beneath dropped curtains, the secret lamp flared high - he caught the dazzling glint through a chink. A glimmer of surprised understanding brushed his mind - overridden by the immediate concern.

"The horde could go in one of two directions: Denerim or Redcliffe. But we do not have the numbers to intercept them from the north. Our only chance is to follow Alistair's route and muster with the rest of the army at Redcliffe. The Archdemon is what's important."

Loghain breathed a silent thanks that Arl Eamon was not commanding, knowing what he would have answered. The thrill of his little Arling becoming the centre of Ferelden - the chance to save his own…

"Damned Orlesian," he grated out, "It's not your capital in the path of the horde; not your Blighted fields. If you are wrong we will lose our entire fertile crescent. Have you ever seen a baby starve at the breast of a mother who has no milk because she starves as well…"

Somehow, he had risen from the chair; was facing the Orlesian. The hooded eyes met his, glinting with eager relish.

"Perhaps you should have thought of that when you turned away reinforcements at the border," Riordan said silkily.

"Perhaps if the Wardens had not such a history of treachery…"

The Warden suddenly reached out, slammed a hand against Loghain's breastplate. She might as well have tried to move one of the Anvil's golems.

"No more," she snapped. "No-one insults the Wardens in my hearing. You will forgive what he said and the way he said it." Keeping Loghain pinned - by conviction if not physical force - she looked to Riordan. "You're speaking of this man's country. My country. You'll forgive his rudeness."

"You are right, of course, sister," the Orlesian said, a small smile brushing his lips, "I apologize."

Loghain's jaw twitched in bitter silence. At last, he managed, "I said more than I should. Now to the matter at hand."

"I believe in Loghain's plan," the Warden said, "We can intercept the horde on the way to Denerim. Rather than wait for the forces at Redcliffe to join us, we attack on two fronts. Attrition may mean the Archdemon won't even manifest - it's obviously waiting for a critical threshold." Her face fell. "We'll still be outnumbered five-to-one."

Loghain shook his head. "Remember, I told you: what counts is how many against how many at the point of contact. Those trapped in the centre won't count. Surrounded, crushed against themselves, their superior numbers will be worse than useless." Bent over the map, Loghain sketched his plan: "We march at dawn - intercept the horde in two days. We rely on trickery: give ground to create the battlefield we need. The withdrawing infantry will be both bait and deadfall; the Drakon River the anvil we smash them against. Units of archers will harry them from both flanks, funnel them into the trap. The cavalry, from the valley between South Reach and Lothering, will charge the rear and flank. When we crush the first wave, we retake Ostagar. You'll send a message to Redcliffe: they attack from the west."

Thoughtfully, Riordan nodded. "It is a good plan - it may work. But what if the Archdemon manifests early. You'll be caught in the open, with no defense."

The Warden flashed the dazzling grin of one enjoying a good secret. "I have some ideas - ways we could counter an airborne threat. I'll explain when we call the Banns and the Dalish leaders." Then she turned to Loghain with a very odd expression - the slightly sheepish fierceness of someone about to present an idea they know will be shot down, who is hoping to avoid an argument through bluff. It nagged him with an inexplicable familiarity. "I will command the cavalry."

"I expect you to avoid personal combat until we need to engage the Archdemon."

The Warden's eyes blazed. It was as though they had absorbed the brazier's light and now it poured from them.

"What you _expect_ makes no difference - I am in charge here. Or don't you follow the chain of command?"

… _The Arl waved his hand dismissively. "No. I understand that you're trying to be brave, lad. But this is the time for discretion."_

_Maric set his jaw. "And I understand what you're getting at, your grace, but that's not your decision."_

_Arl Rendorn regarded Maric with growing rage. "Not my decision? I lead this army!"_

_"My army," Maric insisted, "Or don't you follow your king?"…_

The memory stopped him cold; as did the distasteful knowledge that, far from saving the Warden's life, engaging the Archdemon was a death sentence. Oh - the Orlesian intended to take the final blow, but the effects of torture had taken their toll; Loghain doubted he would get that far. There was the Bastard Prince…but somehow he knew it would be the Warden. She had the kind of commitment that went beyond the boundaries of flesh - she would not fail. All this seemed to weaken him in ways he couldn't explain. Faceless men wavered in Loghain's mental vision: the king's men at Ostagar, the soldiers at West Hill... For a moment, he thought they beckoned. He looked from them to the living face, flushed and brilliant, eyes glinting like flames upon forged steel. Divided in himself and angry at it, he lost the argument to the Warden's single-mindedness:

"You know as well as I that morale counts for a great deal: the men I lead expect to see me there in the van - if they falter, all the rest will be academic."

It was true enough - though he was willing to bet it formed only a part of her determination. He felt her controlled inner pressures and wondered if even she could describe all the forces driving her - it wasn't lust for killing, he was sure of that. Yet she would go where the killing was.

"So be it."

Her eyes - glimmering and wide with wine and visions - met his. "If you ever regret it, Loghain, I shan't be there to know."

Maker - she might have been wearing golden armour, saying "I'd hoped for a war like in the tales"! "And what good does that do anyone?" he snapped, exasperated, "We need Wardens to slay the Archdemon."

At once her face was sharply drained of all joy. She said, quietly, "I have no intention of dying - before my time. But if I should fail, there is still Riordan and - and Alistair." She forced the name out like metal grinding on stone. As abruptly, the dark mood was replaced by cocky determination, "But, really - me, the Hero of Redcliffe, _fail_? I'll lead my men - and I promise I'll have plenty of energy left over for the Archdemon." A little wrinkle at the corner of her eyes showed her suppressed smile. Loghain had to say something to burst her bubble:

"Well - at least this time it is you who will charge from cover, and I who will give the signal."

The Warden scowled - tried to find a rebuttal and, failing that, scowled again. Darkspawn tunnels or no, the Tower of Ishal had not been her finest moment.

He rose, content with the last word, and left the tent to summon the Banns. He spoke to Eamon and Bryland first, then headed over to irascible old Arl Wulf. On the way he passed the large tent that served as the army's kitchen - he had already seen that the Warden's men were well-supplied and that the cook ran a tight ship. The elderly Elven man and two assistants were turning a boar on a large spit. The delicious smell seemed to have melted the last of the tension between the two disparate forces. Soldiers and refugees crowded eagerly around the huge crackling fire. The Elven cook turned to greet him. Worn, stooped, with a curious familiarity about the eyes and mouth. He had the same wiry resilience as the surviving Night Elves in Loghain's army - though the briefest of glances assured he was no fighting man. His neat blue-and-white striped apron was spattered with blood and fat like warpaint, as if declaring his calling.

"Good evening, your grace. How many join you, the Warden-Commander, Arl Eamon and Arl Bryland at the War Council tonight?"

"Are there no secrets in this army? I just spoke to Leonas Bryland."

The head cook shrugged. "The Warden-Commander is my daughter," he explained - eyes lit with a touch of bewildered pride - "I am - was - head pastry chef to Arl Bryland. The Warden-Commander was once his daughter's lady's maid - before her mouth got her in trouble there."

Loghain raised an eyebrow but made no comment. That the Warden had shot her mouth off was no surprise - and Arl Bryland being commanded by his former maid was surely not much of a stretch from being led by a former farmer. Indeed: a man Loghain had once sold to Tevinter was now the army's cook - and as such enjoyed almost unlimited privilege. After all, he ruled the world of appetite.

"My second cousin Nigella is Arl Eamon's maid…"

"Stop." Loghain raised a hand. "It's bad enough knowing we have no security without hearing how every servant and dough-squeezer in the land is shouting our business."

"The only one shouting is you. You don't seem to feel we're so dangerous to you when you sit down to our table."

Loghain opened his mouth to explore the connection between eating and national security - and despaired of penetrating the logic involved. Instead he mumbled the number and turned to leave, the rout complete.

A short while later, he was sitting at the round table, surrounded by a yellowish bruise of light that shone on twelve unlike faces. The brazier's glow seemed to float atop them, thick and mellow as old parchment, creating strange shadows that hung like storm-clouds over granite-hard faces and covert glances. The drumbeat of rain created a sense of enclosure. The smells of leather and steel, mulled wine and maps, called up countless evenings with his father, with Arl Rendorn Guerrin, with Maric.

Grizzled old Arl Wulf sat opposite: face like a fort, skin like a map of the Battle of River Dane, eyes like arrowheads. Highly reliable, and with an archaic forthrightness. Ferelden had many such survivals of the traditions of the warring Alamarri Teyrns, when the general had to take - if his Banns chose to give it - a wholesome piece of their minds. Beside him were Bann Sighard - face quietly composed, eyes like chips of ice - and Arl Leonas Bryland.

Arl Eamon was wearing a fleshy smile that seemed to have nothing behind it but more fat. The loss of influence over the bastard Prince had removed the yeast that would have helped him rise. Without it, he had sunk back into the rich inertia of pastry dough. Denerim had plenty of barbers: that bushy beard was pure affectation. The image he cultivated was that of a rugged Ferelden soldier, but the soft palms and love of intrigue gave him away. Painted to look like a Ferelden - but scratch the surface and you found nothing but Orlais underneath. Eamon's allies at the Landsmeet - Loren and Ceorlic - now sat as far away from him as they could. Ceorlic, sleek and well-fed as a prize calf, seemed to be trying to squash himself into as small a space as possible. Loren's pale eyes shifted nervously toward the tent flap. Eamon was flying the fever flag of failure, and they were keen to distance themselves. The sons of Howe sat beside them. Arl Thomas was already on his second glass of wine; Nathaniel was studying the surrounding faces carefully, silver gaze keen as the flash of blades around the hard, watching pupils.

Silhouetted against the glow of the brazier and the erratic shadows cast by the gesturing group, the Dalish representative introduced as Keeper Lanaya was an enigmatic, vaguely mysterious figure. Her face was shrouded by the tunneled hollow of her hood, small hands tucked into sleeves like the retracted claws of a cat. Oddly, the posture wasn't neutral. Loghain had the impression she hadn't withdrawn from her surroundings, but disdained them. It was clear she was no warrior, and he wondered if the stories of Dalish mages holding power beyond Chantry control were true. Certainly Knight-Commander Rylock was glaring in that direction, eyes dark and glittering as a beetle's carapace. Irritation prickled through him. He had blamed the Tower of Ishal on the Wardens, but the Chantry had not covered themselves with glory either. What might have played out differently had the Grand Cleric allowed Uldred to light the signal?

The unexpected addition of Riordan, to Loghain's left, had forced Eamon to provide a thirteenth chair. Unlike the others, of solid Ferelden oak, this was of Orlesian design: ornate, high-backed, with scarlet-and-gold stitching and delicate curving legs. It hadn't surprised him to see the Warden head straight for it - Elves tended to mistake frippery for status. The example of Anora - who had met the current crisis with austere dignity - would have been lost on her. Purely by accident, she had redeemed some of that impression by the return of the mabari, now curled at her feet, licking his chops after a dinner of roast boar. She looked small surrounded by the Banns, shining and compact, the brightness of red hair and ribbons making armour and cloak look dusty. She looked like an artist's impression of a hero: but her face (self-contained, shadowed, marked by purity of thought) and hands (all bones and calluses, half-moon nails grimy, steepled in front of her) called to mind a stained glass window rather than one of Cailan's stories. Her eyes, which the brazier's light had turned to gold, kept to themselves some thought she had brought with her. She rose, greeted the company, and began without preamble, hard clear voice inexpressive, steady:

"Warden Riordan has brought back - at great personal risk - vital information on the numbers and location of the horde." She unrolled the map, the sturdy table covered once more by the green of hills and valleys, purple ridges, grey trade routes and cites. The two dark masses blotched the beauty like ink-spots. Loghain thought of oil on water, the way it spread and spread, wringing colour from above and below, altering everything it touched. The Banns edged closer like dogs around a carcass. "The first mass number twenty thousand," the Warden finished soberly, "The second: half as many again."

The grizzled Arl Wulf listened in silence. Now he was acidly sarcastic. "If that's the way of it, can I give my men permission to break out all the rations? And pull in the scouts? If we're facing odds like that, we'd as soon die well-fed and well-rested. _Warden_."

Even as he fought the tight smile pulling at his lips, Loghain marveled at the nuances the Arl managed to squeeze into that last word. Somehow, it came out a title, a challenge, and a borderline insult, all at once. He held his silence, curious what the Warden would make of it. He was not here to baby-sit her, after all.

A low murmur rippled through the tent like a rumble of thunder. The Warden did not appear fazed - but before she could open her mouth the mabari beat her to it, growling at Arl Wulf.

The Arl was not impressed. "Dog, if you had sense you'd growl at her, not me. I'm not the one predicting your death." Loghain looked at the shrewd, scarred, ageing face: the old bull snuffing the new spring air, tilting his battle-frayed old horns. _I'm getting on, too…_

The Warden's lips quirked. "I didn't say anything about us dying," she said mildly, "I told you the odds we face. I hear you faced similar odds at River Dane - and the man responsible for that victory will give us his strategy. Loghain, if you would…" The amber eyes, beneath raised, expectant brows, held both trust and plea: _make them believe…_

Humph. The Warden had spent the whole of last night memorizing this strategy - she could have recited it in her sleep. But no, she sat down, waited for him to speak. Perhaps for the same reason she had stepped back during Anora's speech - or maybe she just knew the Banns would take the word of a general over that of a twenty-year-old Elf. He stood, the callused, slightly curved fingers of his right hand moving over outlined ridges, woods and valleys. The palm of his left, dry and hard as old tree bark, rested on the edge of the parchment. He looked up, briefly, at the familiar surroundings of oily light and flickering shadows - the muffled whisper of rain - the shuffling of the mabari as he begged silently for scraps. The huddle of intense, seeking faces wavered and rippled: Arl Wulf's scars - a mass of craters and furrows and shiny white silk - smoothed out; the hatred in Bann Sighard's eyes vanished. His own hands, poised above the map, were younger, straighter. Eamon, Ceorlic and Loren winked out - as did Lanaya, the Orlesian and Rylock. Bann Nathaniel might have been his father: the sharp-eyed, sharp-minded man who had joined the rebellion after the Orlesians murdered his family. The Warden was looking at him with an oddly familiar mixture of challenge, resentment and trust; she grew taller - the silly armour changed to Ferelden iron - the frivolous hairstyle changed to short and practical…

… _Rowan had always had a sharp tongue: she pointed out the weaknesses in his strategy as she had teased him about his flaws as Maric's tutor. Strong - like everything else about her - her derision could wound as deeply as a sword, but was also the whetstone that sharpened his wits. Different from the sunlit ease of his banter with Maric, he and Rowan had been not-quite-friends, rivals, lovers… Until that night in Gwaren. Her grey eyes held a spark of resentment - of the choices he had made and forced her into - that gave them a smoky, inward-looking distance. But she watched as he unfurled the map with complete confidence. Her strong, supple hands - callused by reins and sword-grips - traced the long ripple of the northern River Dane._

_"There are no bridges so far north - and no fords until well upstream of the Orlesian camp. They mean to ferry the divisions across."_

_"We can catch them as they land," said the man to her left, "They'll be disorganized and vulnerable." Loghain studied him thoughtfully. Rendon Howe did not have a warrior's instincts - but the man was brilliant. Politically astute, creative-minded. He had struck against the Orlesians who now held Amaranthine with the unsuspected speed of a viper - it was no surprise he advocated such a strategy here. Unsure, troubled, Rowan hesitated._

_Loghain was bolder. "We mustn't think of the river as a tripwire but as an anvil we can smash them against."_

_"Smash them?" Rowan was dubious._

_"Absolutely. They have the numbers to force a landing wherever they want. We can hurt them, but we can't stop them. So let them come. See how the ground rises on our side of the crossing site? We give ground - bring them to us on our terms - send the cavalry to cut off their escape. When we've beaten them, they've nowhere to retreat."_

_"When we've beaten them?" A third man winked broadly, piercing eyes showing good-natured amusement. "How do we argue with such confidence?" The young face held a kind of graceful ease, the consciousness of a bloodline that predated Calenhad. Loghain thought him a little too confident for a man who had never tasted Orlesian blood - Cousland had only just joined the rebellion, one of the myriad noble families who had flocked to them after the execution of the traitors. He had explained, with a kind of grave courtesy, that his first duty had been to Highever's citizens. He had lost nothing, yet still carried the impression that his damned blue blood gave him right of command, and he spoke Orlesian like a native… Loghain trusted the heavy darkness of Howe's hatred far more than he trusted Cousland's charm. But Rowan smiled. In the steel setting of her armour, she was far lovelier than in woman's dress. Her strong-boned face, arrogance transmuted to leadership, was radiant._

_Loghain's hands dreamed the battle. Rowan was sober now, the earlier banter forgotten. "I don't know if we have the organization to make such a plan work. If we fail…"_

_"You will not. I will not." Loghain almost growled the interruption, searching within himself for the kind of vision his father would have given his men - finding only flinty determination and searing, utter certainty. But his certainty was enough: it gave them strength, pulled them along in his wake. Maric depended on him: had left the army in his hands while he rode to challenge Severan. He did not doubt himself - could not afford to if he were going to be the man they needed…_

"…Hurlock generals have rudimentary strategy: they communicate with war drums. The emissaries can cast: that's where your people come in, Ser Rylock…"

All at once, the young woman became several inches shorter. The muscled grace of a trained swordswoman became the scrawny, wiry toughness of a street scrapper - the cropped dark hair turned red and puffed out in an absurd mass of coloured braids. Loghain shook his head, irritated with himself for falling into reminiscence. He outlined the strategy he had given Riordan.

"…Keeper Lanaya: I will need the Dalish archers to attack from the forests of South Reach." The catlike figure considered carefully; finally nodded. "The archers of Denerim and Gwaren will take the other flank: attack from west of Lothering."

Arl Wulf remained dubious. "For six months you've prepared the capital for defensive warfare. Our only chance is to break the horde upon Ferelden rock. If we'd used Ostagar that way, we might have stood a chance. There's no glorious victory here."

The Warden turned on him a gaze of peculiar intensity. The ends of her feathery red brows drew together, almost meeting. "If we don't meet the horde where they are, they'll use up Ferelden's farmland like kindling tossed into a firepit. Darkspawn aren't soldiers: they're plague. Think of Denerim under siege: that poison tainting the city, infecting women and children…"

"Perhaps," Arl Eamon suggested, "The better strategy would be to muster at Redcliffe. We'd have the advantage of a united force, and be able to strike directly at the Archdemon."

Leonas Bryland snorted, the cropped square of his beard bristling like an angry dog's ruff. "They're not massing on your doorstep, waiting to kill and burn. I stand with the Teyrn and the Warden."

Eamon looked around - realized he had no support among the Banns - turned instead to the damned Orlesian. "What say you, _Warden-Commander_?"

Riordan looked uncomfortable, almost hesitant. "I - will not deny that was my original thought," he admitted, and there was a stir around the table. "But," he added, "The Teyrn's plan is not without its merit." Some cheers greeted his words, with Arl Thomas and Arl Bryland actually pounding on the table. "My misgivings are those of an old man - all the successes the Warden has enjoyed thus far have been due to such risks."

Loghain could not help the sense that there was something very, very familiar about all this… The Orlesian sat down, and a smattering of applause rang out. The Warden smiled at him in gratitude. There were general nods around the table - a glint of grudging approval in Arl Wulf's axe-sharp face. Eamon said nothing, face turned to vinegar.

Bann Sighard, who had been silent till now, nodded thoughtfully. The new lines on his tight-drawn skin were of a pain greater than hate; the eyes, hard as diamonds, bored into him. "Your strategies at River Dane saved us: I believe they will here as well. The King trusted you: so should we." The gesture held a grace Loghain could never have managed. He had thought he had known Rendon Howe: ruthless, cunning, ambitious - but not sadistic. What he had done to Oswyn verged on the insane. Yet he'd left Anora there, the door sealed by magic, unable to escape. What if… An iron curtain came down in his mind. The glint of glacial ice held a dark promise; Loghain knew nothing was changed, that Sighard would have his duel as soon as the Blight was over. Muscles - reflexes - the steel patterns that had defined his life for thirty years - all told him Sighard would lose. Yet the man would accept no quarter - his will would see the body it drove broken apart rather than yield. Loghain put aside his regret, almost before he knew it for what it was. Caught between the Blight and Orlais, there had been no way to choose the right - no right left to choose - but Anora had proven his choice of evils had been wrong.

Another face competed for his attention, almost the image of Howe at that War Council: pale, self-contained, calculations cloaked in chill dignity.

"I volunteer to lead your archers," Nathaniel said.

Loghain considered. He'd seen the young man hunt - he was as skilled a bowman as Loghain had been, in his prime. But he had no experience of war.

"You will be second-in-command," he decided, "Report to Pir Surana."

"An Elf?" That was Arl Bryland's dubious mutter.

"The most senior of my Night Elves," Loghain said calmly. Nathaniel nodded, not seeming offended. Neither had his father seemed offended with Cousland - right up until the moment he slipped the dagger between his ribs. Then a flash of enthusiasm sparked in the eyes - a trace of eagerness warmed the flat monotone. "I shall look forward to learning from the best." Loghain was impressed - unlike the Warden, the young man knew his limits, keen as he was to stretch them. When Arl Bryland asked the inevitable: "Who will command the cavalry?" he sighed inwardly.

"I will," was the Warden's predictable response. Low muttering broke out - as he had known it would. Night Elves - Dalish archers - now this… The brazier's light bathed ruddy, sweating faces in a surrealistic glow. Loren and Ceorlic traded a glance; Loren's pale eyes lit on his, in constant motion like the wings of a moth, silently asking him to put a stop to this. Loghain kept his expression carefully deadpan, stared him down. Loren blanched and looked away. Eamon swallowed his own words, counting on others to say them. Loghain thought for a moment Bann Sighard – a sensible man – would speak; then the blue-bright eyes became opaque, the hard mouth thinned to a determined line. The Warden had saved his son – he would not undermine her here. Arl Bryland cleared his throat - Arl Wulf opened his mouth - but Thomas Howe beat them to it…

The young Arl leaned forward, and Loghain instantly had the foreboding of disaster. Already the flush of drink lit the broad, sweating face. The muddy eyes were not hostile - unlike his brother he had not the sense to suspect a mere Elf of their father's death - but his expression held a self-satisfied, beefy-red lasciviousness. Maker, they would be forced to put up with this lout when they should be concentrating on strategy...

"Indeed, I look forward to serving _under_ you, Commander." The young man gave the word a leering emphasis, "My Elven mistress favours those braids."

Whatever Loghain's opinion of the braids, he would not tolerate such unprofessionalism. He half-rose, but the Warden's quick grab held him in check. He was startled to realize she'd reached for him without even looking - her attention was fixed on Arl Thomas. The lambent eyes were all-golden: flat discs around the pinprick pupils, encircled by a ring of shadow. An unpleasant sense of shock rippled across the young Arl's bovine features. The Warden's smile was distant, cold, amused. "If I thought it would give you the skill of a Warden or a Night Elf archer, I'd braid your hair too."

Arl Thomas stared around, fuming, at the ripples of laughter about the table. Nathaniel was grinning openly, grey eyes all-silver, his distrust for the Warden outweighed by the delight of seeing his brother cut down to size. Arl Eamon managed a thin smile, the falsity of it like grease on his chin.

The Warden looked around, her suppressed grin now out of control. "By the time this campaign is over, the style will represent military success: that I guarantee."

Arl Wulf, amused but too forthright to hold back his feelings, said: "You're not much more than a girl, for all the unity you've brought us. I've had more children than you've had birthdays."

It had the echo of Loghain's first assessment of her: _You're pretty for a Grey Warden…_ It was true enough, but in the raw, sharp-angled look was the ghost of another face, superimposed on the alien Elven features. The set of her shoulders, the thrust of her clean, sharp jawline, was all-Maric: Maric stubbornly insisting he share the risks with his men. Maric with Elven braids: who would have thought it…

"I am a Warden, and I know the darkspawn in a way none of you do, and never will, if you are lucky. As for my birthdays, they are mine: all twenty. Are you that certain about all those children?"

The glint in the amber eyes was hard, almost predatory - but there was a quicksilver charm in the brilliant teasing smile. Eamon was looking scandalized, but Arl Wulf gave a roar of appreciative laughter, acknowledging he had been bested. His hearty laughter freed the smiles of the rest. Her own self-image conquered the lingering echoes of "knife-ears" in the tent. He had seen that quality before: whatever it was about Gareth Mac Tir that had made his vision carry over, if only for a moment, dispelling Loghain's doubts like light in a shadowed room. He found those dour rooms of his mind restful - did not want this brash youth coming in and rearranging furniture - but part of him smiled with amusement. And he knew their fears were - mostly - unfounded. Her task required no great tactical expertise, only bravery and charisma. The real test was in the other jaw of the trap: the planned fighting withdrawal - and he was handling that himself.

"Warden-Commander," the Orlesian said - making the words a tribute, a small smile dancing about his lips, "You said you had ideas for dealing with the Archdemon. Now would be a good time to explain."

The Warden's eyes lit up as though Yule had just come early. She reached into her backpack and brought out the journal she had written in last night, taking notes on his strategy in meticulous detail. He had been curious to read her other entries, dating as far back as her mission to the Circle Tower, but she had been as reluctant to have him see them as Anora was with her journal.

"Lanaya," she said, smiling, "You should be the first to see this. It's something I've been working on with Master Ilen and Master Varathorn. The design belongs to Queen Anora."

She opened the journal to reveal a very odd and strangely familiar contraption. He had seen Anora's fantasy of a half-bird, half-arrowhead that could carry written communications; this was subtly different. It looked like the bastard child of a mad engineer and a circus performer. Huge bat-like wings billowed at the top, below was a triangular contraption that looked like a trapeze with a long balancebar. All the Banns gathered round, muttering. The concept was worthy of a puppet show - it was incredible to see good, sensible men such as Wulf and Sighard gathered round such a thing at a War Council.

"So, Warden," he managed, "You think this - thing - is going to be some sort of artificial griffon for the Wardens to fly on?" Had she been taking lessons from Cailan?

The Warden shook her head. "Not fly. It isn't possible - there's no power in the wings. Fall with style. If we could find a highpoint - say, the Tower of Ishal - and wait for the Archdemon's approach…well, the dragon's the most dangerous predator in the sky. So why would it ever look up?"

Loghain struggled for a suitable response. Much as he would have liked to shoot down such a literal flight of the absurd, he restrained himself. It would be unprofessional to do so in front of the men she was - technically - commanding. Not to mention it had been named as Anora's idea. With a diplomacy his daughter would have been proud of, he said instead:

"I think it would be more practical to concentrate on attrition. The more we whittle down the darkspawn, the less chance the Archdemon will manifest at all. If we draw enough to the surface, we may be able to engage the dragon in the Dead Trenches."

The Council agreed so enthusiastically the Warden closed the journal, a slightly mulish expression on her face.

"Well," she said, with a touch of petulance, "I have some ideas about that too. Bann Howe," she turned to the surprised young man, "You spoke of an invention called "grenades". Would it be possible to use them to collapse the rock?"

This was more likely. Loghain could see it would be down to him to nurture the likeliest of the Warden's dream-children, while ruthlessly pruning her wilder flights of fancy. He had had thoughts along those lines himself.

"Magic could achieve the same thing," he pointed out - ignoring the poisonous glare Rylock sent his way.

This time it was Nathaniel who chipped in, rising from his chair to stand beside the Warden. He moved noiselessly, feet placing themselves as if possessed of their own vision, dark leather armour pragmatic as Loghain's had once been. The Warden rose too. For a moment, the two bristled like stranger cats. Then they settled down to the discussion, mutual enthusiasm overriding mutual distrust.

"Unlike magic, Dworkin's invention allows for a four-minute delay. With the grenades we can set traps, or collapse rock from a safe distance."

"Excellent," the Warden said, "How many can he make?"

"Perhaps," Loghain suggested dryly, "You might consider testing it first."

A sheepish flush spread across Nathaniel's pale face, destroying in an instant his resemblance to Rendon Howe.

"I will speak to Dworkin," the young man said, "We can hold a demonstration out in the field."

"Now?" The Orlesian asked dubiously, knees creaking audibly as he stood up, fingers massaging his lower back. Loghain felt a queasy twinge of empathy.

"No time like the present," the Warden said brightly, fresh as the day. It did not improve his mood.

Arl Wulf snorted. "Is this how you recruit followers, Warden - by providing free entertainment? Well, I can think of ways I'd prefer to spend an evening - but the subject is one I will not discuss in front of young ladies."

The Warden blinked, looked around and then - realizing he referred to her and Lanaya - broke into a radiant, startled grin.

Rylock collared Nathaniel just as the young man was leaving. "Are you sure there's no magic involved here?" That gaunt, long-boned face - no curve, no grace, no yielding - was set into a scowl. It was rare to see a woman Templar - only those of fanatical dedication would choose that path - but here was no stained glass window. She might have been one of those gathered around Andraste's pyre, had Andraste been a mage: _just get them and end them…_ Loghain, who had hunted chevaliers the way other men hunt animals, could hardly pass judgment, but found himself hoping Nathaniel would prick her bubble.

Nathaniel's mouth moved imperceptibly. It was too tiny a movement to be called a sneer, but the piercing eyes chilled any mistaken notion it was a smile. "No more than building a dam across a river. But, by all means, see for yourself." Loghain caught the dark glint of sarcasm, but the Knight-Commander did not.

"I shall indeed."

"Shall we all go, then?" Arl Wulf turned to the gathered Banns with a dour shrug, "And pass judgment on this battle-winning invention."

Thomas Howe, face red as the Warden's armour, glared at his brother. "Always the sly one, Nate. You and your mad ideas - nose stuck in a book. There's only one way to deal with the Archdemon and that's at the end of a sword."

Nathaniel shrugged at what was clearly a familiar litany. "Ah - but we are not all as talented as you, my brother," he murmured. Giving the young Arl a quick, ironic bow, he turned and left the tent.

Loghain, the Warden and the others followed suit. After the stifling mixture of leather and smoke and unwashed men, the night air was a welcome relief. The rain had stopped; wetness gilded the trampled ground with a translucent sheen. The brazier had destroyed his night vision: the mass of tents showed up as purple bruises against the pulsing darkness. Tiny points of light turned the outlines to strands of silver - a complex spider's web that stretched across the valley. The crescent moon was a distant mirror of the Hafter River - and reflected in it, creating chips of light like white diamonds. The black spaces that existed in counterpoint called to mind a chess set - but one in constant motion. Which was like war, where the rules were not static. Even if one could repeat all conditions - which was impossible - one still could not repeat surprise. Nor the weather. Nor the mood the men were in…

Two feminine voices reached him, audible even through the crash and swirl of noise:

"I believe the glider to be a wonderful idea, and I will ask our craftsmen to continue the work. In the time of Arlathan, our technology surpassed anything the shems possessed. Perhaps those days will come again."

Well - he wished them luck with it...

The Warden's companions were gathered in a little clump outside the tent. The Qunari towered over everyone, alien eyes glinting from the sculpted darkness of his face.

"Parshaara," came the low rumble, "I trust your meeting was worthwhile?"

"Oh, yes - we're going to test a new weapon right now. Come with us, Sten - I have so many ideas..."

"I am hardly surprised."

Loghain wasn't sure which prospect was the more irritating - having the Qunari witness a dismal failure, or a battle-winning weapon. Still, trying to keep technology secret was doomed to failure. Nothing was so perishable as the element of surprise - anything a man could see, he could duplicate.

Two knife-sharp glares sought him out: one from a young Elf who looked so much like the Warden she had to be related; the other from an elderly woman in mage robes. He met them with a bland stare. Unpopularity was such a familiar, comfortable state it had as little effect as kitchen knives thrown at a golem. He didn't intend to rise to the bait - he'd already had run-ins with the Warden and her father and had no desire to add a third family member to the list; and arguing with old ladies was like ploughing water.

"We saved you dinner - but it's probably cold now," the biddy told the Warden, an edge to the soft, well-modulated voice. Loghain expected the Warden to bristle - had come to think of her as a foolishly proud young woman who met challenges with dark wit and steely charm. Instead her face crumpled, and she faced her companion with a slightly hangdog air. A spine like Dragonbone when dealing with the Banns - a cream puff among her own followers:

"We're going to test a new weapon, Wynne," she said appealingly, "Will you come?"

The woman glanced pointedly in his direction. "No thank you. I am particular about the company I keep."

"But it could be dangerous - you know you're indispensible."

Would that work? The old mage considered - softened. "Only because you ask. But if I were you, I would delegate the task. Is that not what you have a general for?"

The Warden clapped a hand to her mouth and actually giggled.

"The best commanders lead from the front," Loghain told her pointedly.

"Oh - I mean to test it myself," she promised sheepishly, "I have faith in the idea."

Loghain, the Warden, and the small crowd made their way past the shanty-town of camp followers that had grown up around the army. Refugees he had been forced to turn away from Denerim, who could not afford the journey to the Free Marches. Propped upturned carts, providing rudimentary shelter, formed a dark oblong patchwork. Mothers had festooned the river bank with lines of washing that fluttered like limp, erratic flags. Fat droplets beaded the string, pale and glittering as the marbles Anora had played with as a child. A baby's wail rose shrilling to hurt the ears - drunken singing broke off in a fit of coughing - dogs yelped and whined. Sights and sounds and smells familiar as his own skin, before the bitter-cold throne of Ferelden's de facto ruler, the tidy lines of disciplined troops. The wind changed - the acrid sourness of the slit trench drifted towards him. The Warden had done a decent job; he remembered the shambolic mess of the outlaws his father had joined: disorganized, lazy, filthy and incompetent, until Gareth had whipped them into shape.

The rain had turned the amorphous space of the valley to a lake of grey sludge, bordered to the south by the jagged teeth of Dragon's Peak, and to the east by a purple-black fringe of trees. Nathaniel headed towards them, the pale smudge of his face seeming to float in the darkness, disembodied. Beside him, the dwarf stumped along, a head shorter and twice as broad, iron-shod boots squelching determinedly.

"Warden, Teyrn Loghain: this is Master Dworkin."

"Dworkin the Mad to you," was the encouraging greeting. He held out a broad slab of a hand - not to shake but to show them the device that nestled in the rock-hard palm. Eyes blazed from the nut-brown face with the fixity of blue beacons. The "grenade" resembled an iron ball with a protruding piece of string, coated in wax. Excitement rippled around the Warden as she opened a small flap to reveal the glittering black powder. She carefully took the "grenade" in both hands and bounded over to the gaggle of watchers:

"This funny...this weapon, may not look like much: but it contains a formula that will allow us to explode rock, set traps, and create barricades that will shatter the darkspawn advance. I am told that when we light the string here, we'll all be pleased and surprised. So - " She turned, stopped. "I must ask you all not to move beyond this line." She sketched a furrow with one armoured heel. "That includes you, Ravenous."

The mabari yelped, bumped into her, immense bulk and power throwing her off-balance.

"I'll be alright, boy - trust me..."

Loghain clicked his tongue. "Here's some roast boar saved from supper..." The dog whined, great head swinging between Loghain and the Warden, short stubby tail wagging. Loghain scratched the bristly dome between the alert ears. An action that would normally have earned him a threatening growl and a close view of lethal teeth got a happy bark. The Warden's eyes flew open. "Now I _know_ the way to a dog's heart lies through his stomach." She left them standing beside the old mage and the young Elfwoman, and moved some twenty feet away with the dwarf and Nathaniel. She turned to the young Howe, raised the iron ball as though about to drink a toast, and handed it to its creator to do the honours. The fact that the dwarf handed it right back didn't bode well. Loghain felt an unworthy twinge of amusement as she stopped in her tracks, face freezing as the same thought struck her.

"You've never tested it, have you?" she whispered to Nathaniel.

The young Howe's grin was sickly. "The theory sounded good. I - didn't think you'd go for it, to be honest."

The Warden gamely took match and flint. Nathaniel stood a few feet away, as if torn between his father's lethal instinct for self-preservation and a modicum of gallantry.

Loghain took a step forward, intending to put a stop to this foolishness. It would be absurd to try to keep her from the battle only to let her blow herself up. But before he had taken another step the Warden raised her arm with a flourish, struck a tiny orange flame - and held it to the wick.

It was clear at once that "four minutes" had been an overly optimistic assessment. The flame sizzled all to rapidly toward the centre of the device in a multicoloured shower of sparks.

"Toss it away - run!" Nathaniel called. The Warden turned away from the crowd - threw the device... A flash of white and thunderous boom lifted her off her feet. Her back arched; her head snapped back. Then, so quickly it was part of the same action, she flew backward to land in the mud, limbs flailing like a swatted, multicoloured daddylonglegs. The lighter-footed archer acquired a disturbingly intimate view of the explosion, but managed to stay on his feet. There were shrieks from the crowd - the mage and the young Elfwoman ran forward. The mabari beat them to it, whining, nuzzling her hair, licking her muddy face with a wet towel of a tongue. Nathaniel reached her before the others did. The young archer, stance tautly controlled, extended a bow-callused hand. Clearly, he possessed more chivalry than his brother.

The Warden reached out a shaky hand; Nathaniel gripped it tightly and hauled her to her feet. The mabari whined, cocking his head and turning in circles as if trying to locate something. Loghain suspected he could hear the same gentle ringing as the rest of them.

"Is this how you intend to defeat the Archdemon - by breaking your damnfool neck?" Loghain muttered. "Superior footwork," he complimented Nathaniel - soldier humour tending to lean toward the bleak.

The Warden rose sloppily, leaning on Nathaniel, and patted the back of her head as if to reassure herself it was still attached. She resembled a rather bedraggled bird of plumage. Her hair, loose from its braids, fluffed out in a series of brilliant spiky tufts. The amber eyes wavered. But the pointed thrust of her chin was determined as ever. It took her two tries, but she eventually managed to say: "I see why we needed a test-run." Her lopsided smile was sheepish. She put an arm around the young Elven woman. "I'm alright. Really."

"I see what you mean about indestructible, cousin. You probably could walk through the rock without it. This way's faster though." The gentle wash of the mage's healing magic ghosted through the air.

"Warden: may I give you a word of advice?"

"I have a feeling I'm going to get it anyway."

"In war, having "faith" is not enough. Depend on skill, drill, strength, endurance, tactics: what you know, what's been demonstrated. No matter how tempting an idea, you cannot simply take a gamble in war and hope for the best. Blind trust will not defeat a Blight."

The delicate face was sombre, thoughtful. Thoughts rippled across the surface like the play of black and white on water; each combination unique, each too brief to distinguish.

"I will remember."

Dworkin's blue-bright eyes held a disturbing glee. "A good beginning - but I'll work on changing the proportion of lyrium sand: it needs to be more powerful."

The Warden shrugged and smiled. "Can you work on improving the timing? A thicker piece of string - a different coating? And speak loudly, please." She tapped one pointed ear, looking bemused, "There's a bell in here."

The cries of alarm from the crowd were transmuted by the alchemy of averted crisis to cheers. The Banns seemed to feel an enthusiasm all out of proportion to the explosive's military use. Arl Wulf came up to congratulate the Warden on an evening "almost as entertaining as my first choice would have been." Even Bann Sighard approached: he avoided Loghain - who, having done the unforgivable, could only have the grace to keep his distance - and spoke quietly to the Warden. Though he tried not to hear, he could not help but catch part of it:

"Oswyn talks about becoming a Grey Warden. He remembers what you said to him. I - have you to thank that he dreams of the future at all. I should have told you so before."

Gently - struggling against tears - the Warden replied: "I'd be honoured to have him - when he's ready. But there are better paths."

"I'll admit the same thought occurred to me. Even the servant - I mean, the Elven woman who looked after him - agrees. But it's his decision."

"Myrtle? You've seen..."

"She has a position at Dragon's Peak, now. The boy - well, they seem to have an understanding."

Loghain did not hear the rest - he was relieved when Cauthrien sought him out. Tall, spare, dark hair pulled back in its severe ponytail, she was a welcome antidote to both frippery and regret. The moonlight arrayed her long-boned face in sombre shadows, illuminated the broad, strong sweep of heavy cheekbones, the familiar scar that ran below. Her dark eyes were curiously bright, like a hawk's eyes, as she said:

"It isn't a bad idea - if that madman can ensure "four minutes" means just that. If we pack the barricades with that powder, our archers would have protection; staking the ground will be no use against darkspawn."

Loghain turned the problem over in his mind, taut muscles beginning to relax. On some level, Cauthrien had distracted him. They talked for a while, quietly, steadily, plotting strategy with the same dour patience with which farmers sowed fields. She had no illusions about what they faced, no hothead enthusiasm, no dreams of glory. She had a grown woman's thought - slow but sure - and when she moved, it was like a mountain shifting its place. As the little gathering began to break up, their conversation moved to Orlais - the need to protect the kingdom once the Blight was over. Neither gave voice to the knowledge that such plans were frighteningly fragile conceits.

"We can discuss it over a game of chess," she said - another familiar routine. After War Councils - to which Cauthrien was never invited, not fielding her own troops - it was his habit to replay what was said, bouncing ideas off someone who understood their practical applications better than anyone alive. She listened to him, pointed out flaws in his approach, weaknesses in the Banns' objections. He did not usually take her advice - but it was deeply welcome. Never once did she mention Ostagar, the memories of death that crowded into every waking moment, his unforgivable miscalculation of the nature of the threat. She bore her pain and shared his without a murmur.

Those hours with her were his strength.

He nodded, watched her walk away: lean and haggard as a wolf, a silver shadow against the black.

The Banns and the Orlesian bade the Warden farewell - dark shapes melting into the distant camp. The old mage and the Templar commander shot him glares before they turned away - the young Elf embraced the Warden: "Last one to the camp has to braid her cousin's hair!" and ran off before she could answer. Loghain found himself walking back with the Warden and the mabari.

"It's over," said the Warden, "And they listened - even Arl Bryland!" There was a touch of smugness, of astonished delight.

"You can buy respect by birth or by bloodshed, I've found," he said, wondering if she was too young and too naive to understand the sarcasm - to realise how shallow this kind of adoration was; how the very Banns who had cheered the young farmer-turned-hero had been the first to turn on him for getting "above his station".

For a moment, he saw something in her regard that was not young at all - but the smile she gave was cheerful, "Oh - I never thought it would _last_," she explained, "I'm just - enjoying the moment!"

"Leonas Bryland listening to his former servant - I suppose I can see the appeal," he acknowledged dryly.

"You know about that? Truly, he did me a favour by sacking me: where would I be if I'd spent the last five years as a handmaid instead of a dockworker?" When he raised an eyebrow, she explained: "I can work for twelve hours without a break; it taught me endurance. It would have come harder to start learning now, as I'd have had to - you can't ask your men to put up with things you can't bear yourself."

This candid sharing of a truth he had lived by before she was a wink in that Elven cook's eye amused him. But she was right. Nothing about her was physically impressive - but he could see she had the kind of wiry toughness that the poorest of his recruits possessed: those adolescents late getting their growth because of scant food and overwork, all stringy muscle and bone, possessed far more stamina than the young noblemen, with the sleek gloss of privilege, who had the muscle to wield greatswords but tired half-way through morning drill.

"When Bann Sighard spoke of the King - he meant Maric, didn't he?" she asked curiously. Loghain was surprised she had picked up on that. It was true enough that though Cailan had been King for the past five years, the memory of the Rebel Prince was more alive than his. He nodded.

"Tell me about him."

_... Maric had been clumsy as a puppy, dropping his sword or falling off his horse, falling all over himself with enthusiasm whenever someone made a particularly acute jest; yet he had held his own among the soldiers, in spite of his instinct for mishap, by knowing them all by name and by displaying an unfailing courage and humour that had made many of them look at him with affection indistinguishable from respect..._

"What would you like to know?" he asked warily. He expected something crass, the sort of thing a graceless young woman _would_ come up with – and the Warden did not disappoint:

"Is it true he had a preference for Elven women?"

Loghain rolled his eyes. She had Maric's charm and Rowan's temper and Gareth's idealism, but those things had been added to, not changed from, the essential Elven identity. Clacking talk at the Alienage market, gossip nineteen to the dozen when good solid Ferelden folk would keep silent. Elves were all flame and music and delicate bones: flighty compared with Ferelden earth and iron. Or was it her youth – surely Anora had not been so fond of scurrilous gossip at that age… The thought went through his mind that it was surely a little late for her to be picking up tips for seducing the Bastard Prince – but he had no desire to transform the conversation to a blood-letting.

"Why - are you planning a career change as a writer of scandalous historical journals?" he asked instead.

"No – just wondering why everyone calls him a great king when he sounds like a horny jackass to me."

Loghain hid his own smile, sternly feeling that the disrespect should not be tolerated – but hampered by the undeniable fact that he had wondered the same on several occasions. He saw, as if in front of him, that wry, sheepish grin as his friend was caught in yet another indiscretion, listening to Loghain's lectures.

"Well: if an Alienage guttersnipe can become a general, a horny jackass can become a great king." Maric's laugh - his ability to laugh at himself was one of his most endearing qualities - ghosted through Loghain's mind.

The Warden clapped a hand to her mouth; her suppressed laughter bubbled out in a little snort. Loghain was not used to making people laugh, even those closest to him: Cailan had been too in awe of him, Anora too serious, Cauthrien too professional. Even Rowan had been, like him, given to sarcasm rather than humour. The last person who had ever laughed with him had been Maric. He smiled too, having had the last word for the second time that day.

_Author's Note: I'm a little embarrassed to give you two chapters of preparations, and still no Battle of Ostagar! I intended to include it in this chapter - problem is, it's almost as long again. The battle and the whole "Return to Ostagar" sequence will follow in a few days. Loghain's military strategy is a version of Cannae, the archetypal battle of annihilation, but there are nods to Gladiator, LOTR, the legend of Camelot, Avatar and even Toy Story in here too :) _

_I have changed canon a little here: in-game West Hill has already been overrun. IMO if the horde had advanced that far north I don't see how the country could have survived, and surely not even Arl Eamon could have missed them! I've tried to position them in a way that makes sense of the whole "Redcliffe" decision._

_I'd like to thank Dragonracer13 for pointing out that Leliana would not be the only companion Loghain suspects: what exactly were Sten and his company doing in Ferelden? Arsinoe: I agree with you that horses would shy from darkspawn. I really wanted to include them, so have tried to find ways round this. _

_Ril and Anora's glider design is based on the William Beeson model, rather than a modern hang-glider. Mutive: I agree, it will take several attempts before they create one that actually works!_

_And special thanks to icey cold, for bouncing ideas and for the insights as to what is going on with Ril behind the scenes._

_Thank you to everyone for following along so far: your reviews, faves and alerts make my day!_


	12. Chapter 12: Immortal

Part One: Immortal

_Author's Note: _

_This is exactly one third of Chapter Twelve. Part Two: Invictus (The Battle of Ostagar) and Part Three: Pale Battalions (RTO) will follow. I can only apologize for - yet again! - failing to get to the battle. My excuse is that I have left my job to set up my own business, and things are hectic and manic - though a hell of a lot of fun :) After some thought, I decided to publish in stages, just to let everyone know I'm still alive!_

_I'd like to thank the following ladies:_

_icey cold and Shakespira for some brilliant discussions that have shaped my views on darkspawn, the murky game of Warden politics, and how dreams can warp to obsession. analect - my fellow "Alienage" fan - for wonderful conversations on Cyrion, Elven pride, family loyalty and Shianni's emotions on being the one left behind. And for creating such a gorgeous avatar of Ril (see my profile!) _

_Shakespira's wonderful chapter "Dreamers" from "The Lion's Den," Aurora Cousland's yearning for family roots in icey's "Trovommi Amor" and analect's searing "A Father's Regret" are my main inspirations. "Mess of shems" was coined by Shakespira, and Persephone Chiara is responsible for the distinction between "selfish" and "self-centred" (Alistair in The Edge of the Grey Enigma)._

Shianni reached the camp ahead of her cousin, joining her uncle and Soris by the large white square of the supply tent, gleaming like a squat iceberg amid the hodgepodge of wagons, lean-tos, and propped upturned carts. She turned toward a sight both familiar and strange: Rilian bounding toward her, youthfully straight in her mud-spattered armour; unconsciously graceful. Her amber eyes - so like Shianni's own - swept the camp; bright, lively. One grimy hand was pressed to her mouth, stifling muffled laughter. But the other side of the picture - so incongruous it might have been a puzzle piece from a different box - was the armoured figure beside her. Sabatons drawing brutal furrows through the earth, the clank of steel, a face like a scowling vulture. A shem nobleman: the Regent, the General, the slaver...

All at once she felt cold and out on a limb here, dropped into this alien camp. A rustle of leather - the faint smell of sage soap and wood and vitality - and Cale Mahariel was suddenly there.

"Let's get out of this mess of shems."

Shianni blushed scarlet. She had been camping with the Dalish for several days: but had shared a fire with Merril, the softly-spoken young woman who was Keeper Marethai's apprentice. Although anything to do with magic made her uneasy - as it would any right-thinking person - it was a comfort to share with someone close to her own age, who did not look down on her from a pedestal of experience. But was Merril going back too? What would it mean, to return with Cale? She hesitated, looked to where Cyrion and Soris were standing. At once her uncle came over. Shianni was relieved to see him. Once, his over-protectiveness had chafed. Now it meant safety and familiarity; a retreat from the fetter of strange, unsettling delight that she knew in Cale's company and that seemed to open such dizzying possibilities of change.

"You'll want to stay for Rilian's homecoming, lass," he said, with a rather pointed glare at Cale. Shianni blushed. Shems or no shems, how could she think of walking out on Rilian? The sight of her laughing with the slaver had seemed impossible - but, no, it was Rilian's disloyalty that was impossible: which meant that there had to be a good reason.

"Good night, Warden."

"Loghain."

Rilian turned, saw her, and something - a soft glow of embarrassment mixed with delighted welcome - moved across her face.

"And now we'll eat, and crack open a bottle!"

Rilian introduced them to the motleyest bunch of companions Shianni had ever laid eyes on. Only one was a fellow Elf - and he was just as foreign as the rest. A dark-skinned giant, a red-haired woman with a sweet voice and the kind of solicitous concern that had always set her back up: the shem do-gooders had had the same condescension. Two other women who had the same strange aura as Merrill, like a crackle of electricity. Another warrior with whom Shianni had at least three things in common: he was not a shem, he had red hair, and he was clearly enjoying his ale. It was all of a piece with her cousin's oddness: in the Alienage, she had associated with Mother Boann and Ser Otto with a familiarity that had worried Shianni. Shianni had come to know the Templar during the voyage, and trusted him as much as she could any shem knight - she was not surprised when Rilian called him over. A thin young man walked beside him: he too had that aura, only his was darker and heavier: a current under black ice, barely moving.

But, three mugs of ale later, Shianni's opinion of the gathering began to change. The jagged edges of displacement and distrust began to blur, curling inward in a dreamlike haze as soft as petals. Colours and shapes swam before her eyes: intense, brilliant as the faces around her. Alien, yes, and sometimes threatening but...beautiful, she thought, as though seeing them for the first time, how they belong to each other. Rilian, torn from the community that had held her funeral five months ago, had forged a new home, and now she drew both sides out like a fine thread, stitching them together. Haphazard, faintly uneasy - but the fabric held. The evening went smoothly, albeit strangely. If their laughter was sometimes a shade forced, it was never without warmth. They ended sitting around a fire of such spent coals that the pale glow nearly drowned in the light of myriad stars. For some while they were all quiet, caught in that splendour. The howl of the mabari - mournful, eternally pure - reached into the hearts of all and soared toward it.

Then the red-haired woman brought a lute and the music made Shianni catch her breath. The high, sweet, accented voice might have been Adaia's. She looked at her cousin, and at once understood the bond between them. Had Adaia lived, she would have trained Rilian to be a bard: her terrible death, five back-breaking years as a dockworker, and the Wardens had made a soldier of her instead. But the tender yearning was there, a muted glow upon the flushed, brilliant face. The stream of sound cascaded through its gorges; the bright spray glittered above. Rilian joined in, shyly at first, her tentative chorus seemed to cling to the melody, half-enfolding it. The bard, smiling, encouraged her; the two voices rose and fell in unison. Rilian's pure alto formed the perfect counterweight. Shianni felt the invisible bond between the two singers as they wove the story of a hero returning to his homeland after a long and dangerous quest...

_...The night is dark, the wind blows chill_

_Across the rolling plain_

_And every pace and every breath_

_Brings me nearer home_

_Memories dance before me now_

_They whisper through my mind_

_The dawn will lead me onward to_

_The land I left behind..._

The voices floated and swelled; the bard handed Rilian the lute and, after a moment of hesitation, callused hands drew notes that echoed and re-echoed, like wild voices in a glen. Her head was tilted up and a little leftward, her eyes unfocused and glittering, her lips parted in the fierce and tender smile of an act of love.

Shianni, torn between bemusement and affection, thought: "She's off."

The music climbed to a rapt crescendo. As the dramatic, headlong, passionate impromptu swept from climax to climax, the instrument could not sustain the onslaught, and was going out of tune. Rilian must have heard it, but went on as though her will could compel the strings. She is using it, Shianni thought, as she uses herself...

One snapped, and whipped around the others; there was discord, and silence. Rilian stared at it unbelievingly.

"What did you expect?" asked the bard, beestung lips quirked in a smile, "Did you think it was immortal?"

Shianni, who had expected the sheepish, faintly wistful smile Rilian gave when admonished, was startled and troubled to find her on the verge of tears.

"I thought it would at least last until I'd finished!"

"Ma cherie, do not worry. Come - give it to me."

The bard brought a new string from a lacquered box, and deftly put the instrument in order. Rilian got up and walked restlessly about.

"See - good as new!" The bard smiled gently, and Rilian returned it: with genuine affection, but something in her eyes Shianni couldn't place. She only knew it haunted her. A moment of aching loneliness, the shadow of fear and then, as suddenly, fierce determination. Rilian said:

"I doubt we'll see a night like this again. This group. These companions. What times we've had! But there are other things to come. So let's say one last good night as a band. A salute, one to another. To the love of friends for friends."

All stood. There was a salute. And embraces. Some tears. Quietly, whispering the good night Rilian suggested, they parted.

While the shems busied themselves setting up camp, Soris crowded in with Cyrion in the spacious supply tent, while Shianni shared with Rilian in a far shabbier soldier's bivouac. Her mabari guardian - so unlike Helm-Piddle back home, yet equally loyal - curled up outside. As soon as she entered the tent she wrinkled her nose. Rilian's belongings - pots, armour, a heavy bag - were strewn haphazardly, adding to the dark, cave-like appearance. Shianni looked within the bag to find a mess of items: an obsidian figurine, a beautiful rose-coloured lantern, a gauntlet, a journal, a rolled-up map, the crumbs of a sandwich and a piece of cheese. Shianni, who shared a bunk with Rilian back home, was used to this, but it never ceased to amaze her that a person with such an eye for beauty - of music and jewellery and even armour - could be such a slob. She set about making order, and by the time she had positioned the little lamp its soft glow lit the snug inside as though rose champagne had been poured over it. Rilian's eyes were bright.

"You make everything lovely," she said softly, admiring. It was true: Shianni had always had a gift for homemaking.

Shianni hid her shy pleasure, tutting as she was wont to do back home: "If you spent half as much energy decorating your surroundings as you spend decorating yourself, you would too."

Rilian feigned a pout as a matter of form. "I've had a lot to do," she said plaintively, echoing the familiar refrain: _lifting crates is harder than washing clothes... _"The Dalish have it easy - all you do is hunt and shoot arrows."

"Now see here..." Shianni held up her right hand: bleach-stained from years of work, now marked with a raw line across the middle finger. Rilian held the hand in her own larger ones: grimy, marked with a swordsman's calluses, all her fingernails bitten to the quick.

"Now we both have war scars," Rilian said softly. Shianni looked into a face made beautiful by its intentness, the rose light gilding brown silky skin with a sheen much like her armour. Scars...that pale line beneath her left cheekbone was new. Shianni reached upward; traced it with a gentle fingertip. Rilian went curiously still, as though the touch had anaesthnatized her somehow. The dancing eyes became opaque. The ripple of change was so odd and so unlike her Shianni felt it as a warning - a shudder of empathy that woke memory-shadows like cobwebs. But a moment later Rilian had thrown off the deadness. In a startling shift of mood she said brightly: "And that's not the only one I have. You should see the marks of the High Dragon. Had me up in its mouth - a mouse caught in a giant trap. But this mouse has a kick..." As she spoke she worked at undoing the straps of the red armour. Shianni joined her, far more deftly, and between them they unshelled Rilian like a lobster. Underneath, a grey tunic with some stylised creature emblazoned across the front clung to warm skin. Rilian's entire body seemed taut as the driven lute string before it snapped.

"How much sleep have you had?" Shianni chided. She had always felt much, much older than her cousin, though there were only two years between them. Rilian's tendency to daydream had made her seem young. She seemed young now, despite her strange brittleness, bright and sharp as shards of glass. During the gathering Rilian had told a tale of triumph - of escape from the docks and free return to Arl Howe's estate, of the forging of the alliance. Shianni suspected more had happened - but she could not be sure, because Rilian's reaction was so different to her own after Vaughan's attack. Red rage had carried her through it; and afterwards, grim, dour, bitter anger had sustained her. She had stuffed away her own dreams for so long that she hardly knew what dreams were made of. In the Alienage, they were dangerous.

"Oh - enough," Rilian said vaguely, "Here and there. There's a lot of army to watch. Anyway - there'll be plenty of time to sleep after the Blight." That last sentence came out a shade higher than normal, and just a little too cheerful.

Shianni rubbed her back, trying to unwork the knotted kinks of tension, kneading shoulders far broader than an Elfwoman's ought to be, a spine hard as Dragonbone and fragile as a bird's, feeling, through the tunic, the faint ridges left by Habren's whip, overlaid by the scars Rilian had boasted of.

"I should like to kill Habren, do you know that?" she said idly.

Rilian was turned away from her but Shianni felt her smile. "Oh - I thought that once. But she did me a favour: it prepared me for where I am." Her ribs and their muscle-layer had knit together; her side felt like armour. "It's funny - I was just saying the same to Loghain."

Shianni was shocked. Details of life in the Alienage - the work they did, the hardships they endured - were their own pride, not for outsiders. For Rilian to speak of it to a shem - especially _that_ one - was...not decent.

"How can you talk to that murderous tyrant?" she blurted, "I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him!"

The vehemence of her tone caused Rilian to turn. She shrugged. "He's using me - I'm using him. So long as we both benefit, the alliance will hold." Those words were shocking enough - and then Rilian's lips moved in a hard curl. The predatory expression was nothing like her old smile; her amusement held the gleam of a knife. "When we turn on each other, we'll go through the front."

Silence weighed between them.

"What did I say?" Rilian asked sheepishly, herself again. Shianni looked into the dancing amber eyes with the wistful doubt already beginning to shadow them.

Shianni shook her head. "Not what was said, but who said it. My cousin, my loyal dreamer, would never play such games. And - I know you're doing it for us, but you enjoy this murderous alliance! It doesn't make sense."

"I..." Rilian said plaintively, then stopped. "I have to play politics. The shems are like the elephant in the room - they're no point pretending they don't exist. We have to dance with them somehow. Look what we've gained! No more overlords - our own Bann. And Loghain's a sparring partner: he keeps me on my toes. Also," her voice softened and muted, "I have to see the funny side - if I'm to feel and not go mad."

Shianni put her arm around the broad, suddenly frail shoulders and squeezed. Rilian made a strange sound, half-way between a sneeze and a hiccup, eyes ablaze with gratitude. Absently, she noted that the material was very fine - fine as the shem garments that festooned her home like alien blooms, hung out to dry. A jagged tear criss-crossed the shoulders, recently mended by an expert hand. Not Rilian's, then - her cousin's ineptness as a seamstress was exceeded only by her efforts at cooking. Shianni traced the stitching.

Rilian flinched.

A shard of ice pierced Shianni's chest. Two things had made her own attack bearable: that no-one but Rilian knew, and that her cousin had escaped.

"What did they do to you?" The words were pebbles dropped onto glass: hard, cold and shattering.

Slowly, Rilian's head drooped. She closed her eyes tight; tears sparkled at the corners. "Arl Howe hurt me - some kind of Blood Magic. I thought I was dying. But he never...never..."

"Not your _body_," Shianni said softly, understanding. She took her cousin's hands. "After Vaughan's attack, everyone blamed Soris. Elva said: "Oh, if you hadn't interfered," and Teris even said: "If you were going to make such a fuss, you could at least have saved Nola." But he couldn't have saved her - no-one could. They certainly hadn't. All his fault, it was - but how could he help it? Men like Vaughan and Howe are the same as sickness: they take any victim they can find; they cause pain because that's what they do. Think of what happened as sickness, or a wound: something not your fault at all. It has to be accepted, and you have to adjust, but it needn't stop you walking - even dancing, though you may limp a little from time to time. I survived, you will - that's how we all live."

"It's not right," Rilian said, in a voice Shianni remembered from years past, "We can't change what happened - but we can make a better world than this. No other Alienage girl will suffer the same - or if they do, someone who cares will seek justice."

"Foolish dreams," Shianni said with a fond smile.

Rilian's lips quirked. "Don't you remember your words to me, after mother died?"

… _Shianni and her cousin stood in the heart of their community, by the steps to the meeting platform. The houses here were some of the best in the Alienage: small, but neat and clean - a far cry from the crumbling shacks of Dock Street where Shianni's family had lived. Wildflowers made brave splashes in windowsills - proof that, like Elves, weeds could survive anywhere. The hanging sign outside Alarith's store was a bold, defiant statement - the goods he sold rivaled Denerim market. The cobbled streets were well-swept, and during the day the sun shone through the branches of the Vhenadahl, spreading intricate shadows like latticework. The warm summer evening was muggy with mingled smells of wood, chimney-smoke, the acridness of the middens around which half-starved cats prowled, and the ale that soaked the platform: generations had stained the worn wood like varnish._

_"Mother and father are away tonight," Rilian confided, amber eyes dancing with glee behind red bangs. Her shower of hair fell past her shoulders, elaborately braided in an intricate design unknown among their community - something Adaia had learned in Orlais. Two jewelled combs glittered on top - these had fallen off the back of a wagon, according to Adaia, and her cousin was naïve enough to take the words literally. Too tall - and too clumsy - for the traditional dresses, Rilian wore trousers and her mother's boots, but made up for them with her top: an explosion of beads and embroidery across a chest as flat as a board. On the back, she had painted a stylized cat's face. Two jade discs were the eyes. Though Shianni herself preferred traditional dresses, she secretly delighted in her cousin's swagger and vitality._

_"I know," she nodded, her tone rather grim. Her uncle could not help his reasons - he would be working overnight at the palace. The King was holding a Landsmeet just before the voyage: Arl Bryland had lent the services of his finest cook. But why Adaia had to perform at the banquet was beyond her. Rilian's parents had argued over it all day. Shianni was firmly in agreement with her Uncle: everyone knew the King's tastes; this could only end in scandal. Did Adaia miss the life of an Orlesian bard so much she had to recreate it here? Cyrion had put his foot down over Adaia's including Rilian in her "adventures" in Denerim; Rilian had never stolen in her life and if Shianni had her way she never would. But why could her uncle not see that his own plans were almost as worrying? He wanted her to continue his family tradition of service: but putting a girl with Rilian's voice in the same circles as the shem King and his son was asking for trouble. Shianni could not bear to see her end up like Missa - mother to a human child - or Janeel, who wore shem dresses and was spat on in the street. Shianni's mother - a good decent woman - had constantly warned her that what she called "high notions" was a form of moral decay. A soup ladle wielded like a war club had made it clear that an Elven woman should be invisible to their overlords. Shianni's scalp tingled in remembrance of throbbing knots the size of walnuts. They saved her from sin. It was the favourite adage of their community: notice brings trouble. The tall tree catches the forester's eye…_

_Her cousin placed one slender, long-fingered hand with tender reverence upon the gnarled bark of the Vhenadahl, it's ancient, encompassing width dwarfing them both. "So," she said mischievously, "Shall we sleep up here tonight? It's one of the secret wishes I'd believed forever unattainable, and now it's tumbled into my lap like a gift from the Maker. It's really such good luck as to be uncanny."_

_"I don't think that's a good idea," Shianni said - but Rilian had already started shinnying up, looking rather like a multi-coloured daddy-longlegs climbing a drainpipe. Shianni sighed and - against her better judgment - followed. They reached a nest of branches as broad as they were - and Rilian exclaimed in delight:_

_"You can see the whole town from up here!"_

_They sank down onto the sheltering branches with sighs of contentment. The ancient bark and young leaves yielded an indescribably alluring aroma. Looking up, they could see nothing but a great sky of faint rose, pricked with early stars. Birds swooped darkly against the paling western gold. Below, the entire Alienage was spread like an intricate patchwork, bordered by its encircling wall. The darkening bulk of Arl Urien's estate squatted like a toad; beyond, Fort Drakon jutted like a black warning._

_They talked for a while in whispers, of their secrets and dreams and fears, of matchmaking and their own future marriages. Rilian, it appeared, was slightly pessimistic regarding her chances._

_"The boys like me as a mate, but I don't believe anyone will ever really fall in love with me."_

_It was on the tip of Shianni's tongue to point out that Rilian had a father who would pay a large dowry; she and Soris would have to make do with whomever the Elder decided. Then she looked at her cousin's wistful face and caught back the words._

_"Nonsense. Nine out of ten men will fall in love with you."_

_"But it'll be the tenth I want," persisted Rilian gloomily._

_Shianni rolled her eyes. There was no use wasting perfectly good reassurances on a cousin like this._

_Rilian wriggled about, rolling over to lie on her front._

_"Will you stop that," Shianni implored, "You're like an eel! You might push me off the branch."_

_Rilian giggled. "I keep thinking about Lady Habren, tomorrow. Do you think she'll be like the ladies in Mother Boann's book?"_

_Shianni snorted. "You read too much - it rots commonsense." This was another of the "notions" her mother had warned against:_ If shopkeepers feel the need to do numbers and make letters, that's their business. For the rest of us, the Elder knows all we need to know. That shem should never have set up her school here. It ruins kids for work, and leads to arrogance. An arrogant Elf is a dead Elf…

_Rilian swatted her._

_"Just remember what I taught you and you'll be fine."_

_"Be polite and courteous at all times?"_

_"No. Head down; trap shut."_

_And then they talked of almost everything else in the world. Finally Shianni closed her eyes._

_"Why must we sleep?" Rilian murmured drowsily, "The Elder says our ancestors never did. We should be able to do without."_

_"The Elder also says our ancestors used to be immortal. But we aren't - and we do. Get some rest."…_

...The river of time flowed onward - Shianni's memory skipped forward...

_...She found her cousin by old Timon's smelly lean-to, hunched protectively over a mug of sour ale. Rilian had filled out - in none of the right places. Her chest and stomach were flat as iron sheets; her shoulders were broad, her weight all-muscle. Short, rough-cut hair hung in stringy clumps. Work-worn boots, trousers with a weave so hard the dockworkers called them iron-butts and a sweat-stained shirt completed the picture._

_"You're turning into a drunk," Shianni said briskly, "It's been what - a year? - and all you do is work and drink."_

_"And eat," Rilian said sullenly, "Don't forget that - father tells me all the time."_

_"And eat. You don't read - you don't sing - you don't dream."_

_"You didn't like it that much when I did. Dreams are dangerous - you said it yourself. And you were right. Mother died for hers. And you're a fine one to talk about drinking..."_

_"You know what I mean. Drink for celebration, yes - with all of us, a lot of singing and dancing - but not this way."_

_Shianni could not so easily dismiss the rest of Rilian's words. It was true she had feared for her cousin - but now she asked herself if she could live with less than the person that she knew and loved. Rilian was a dreamer - whatever diminished that diminished her soul. Better to worry about a life that could be snatched away than watch it whither and whine itself to misery._

_"Dreams _are_ dangerous," she said quietly - not at all sure she was doing right by encouraging Rilian in a notion she did not share herself, "But - if anyone can change things, it would be you." _

_"I used to think so." Rilian's eyes were haunted - guilt as well as grief shadowed her face, turned her old before her time. Her sacking had been her own fault, no getting around it - and if the chain of consequences had been unfair, nothing ever had been. The Maker was said to care about fairness - but He was far away, nothing to do with the Alienage._

_"You can't change the past - but you can make a better world than this."_

_After a moment, Rilian stirred. She seemed a little unworldly, like a person just waking after long illness. Something flared in her amber eyes like kindling caught with the spark. As if afraid to hope, she said slowly,_

_"I don't have much time to dream, now. Only - it doesn't take a genius to lift crates." She stopped - a sudden thought lifted the corners of her mouth in the first smile Shianni had seen in a long time. "I can dream _while_ I work!"..._

..."So you see," Rilian said softly, "You gave me back my dream. I still have it. I always will. It's not important to _achieve_ all your dreams - it's important to have them, and never let them go. Even an Alienage cat passes its life half out of time. We don't have to put our soul into what we do - just as well, otherwise who would have any soul left! All those years I saw myself defending our people - fighting men like the guards in the square. Nelaros was a dreamer too - he fought for me." Her breath hitched - her voice broke, but she continued, "Would you like to know my secret about the Wardens?"

Half-afraid, Shianni nodded without speaking. Her eyes darted about, before she looked determinedly at Rilian. She still had the feeling Rilian wasn't telling the whole truth when she said:

"Only Wardens have the power to slay the Archdemon. I can't tell you how - it's _our_ knowledge. But because Loghain knows that, I have power - I lead these armies. The Orlesians tried to blackmail him by insisting chevaliers accompany their Wardens. My price is lower - I'll demand justice for our people. You see, no-one can predict the course a dream will take."

The closed, lambent fierceness made Shianni nervous. She'd seen that look on Rilian's face before - she'd had it when charging impossible odds to save her. Shianni reckoned that kind of willpower took something off a person's life each time. The changes in Rilian went deeper than gallows humour and a willingness to play politics: something had settled in her – her mobile, expressive face held a curious stillness; a granite certainty. Rilian couldn't see the eagle glare of her own eyes: in her own mind, she remained Ril Tabris of the Alienage, Cyrion's little girl – the dream unchanged.

A sigh ghosted through Shianni. She had long resigned herself to the fact that Rilian would never be safe. At least her words had done no harm.

Or had they?

Cale Mahariel had told her that Elves had fought during King Maric's rebellion - and gained nothing. How long, she wondered, does it take for a failed dream to wizen into bitter brooding about what might have been?

Rilian rose to her knees and crawled over to the backpack. She rummaged through it, and brought out a thick, leather-bound journal etched with golden filigree. The design was of stylised roots and branches delicate as lace. Rose light glittered upon gold with eerie luminescence; the play of light and shadows called to mind a burning tree. Rilian traced thick, mellow parchment with quiet reverence. Shianni craned her head, and saw an intricate map, with arrows, notes and symbols denoting the battle plan.

"It's late," she said gently, "And you'll be no good to anyone if you're too tired to think clearly tomorrow."

"I can't settle my mind. What Loghain doesn't know about strategy isn't worth knowing but - I keep worrying there's something he's missed. Denerim's soldiers, the Templars and the Dalish...their lives are in our hands." A sudden thought struck her and she jerked her head up - looked right into Shianni's eyes:

"I want you to join the supply train tomorrow."

Shianni didn't blink - she had known this was coming. Calmly, she said: "I've made my own plans. I'm joining the Dalish archers."

The brightly unpredictable face turned mulish. "I won't let you take that risk."

Stuffing away the urge to shake her cousin, Shianni snorted instead. "Let me? You can't _keep_ me from taking it!" She held her breath, waiting for Rilian to try the silver tongue that so annoyed Elva, and her cousin did not disappoint:

"Shianni, be reasonable. You've only just started training with the Dalish - you have no experience."

"And how much experience did you have at Ostagar?"

Pricked by this undeniable truth, the pomposity deflated. Almost petulantly, Rilian muttered: "Have you thought what it'll do to me if you're killed?"

Shianni bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. Rilian had been the centre of her parents' world, and she had never quite grown out of the tendency to think of herself as a special case. It was alright for _her_ to make the ultimate sacrifice, and let others pick up the pieces! She was the least selfish person Shianni knew, but could be childishly self-centred.

"I know we agreed we'd live free or die free - but fighting slavers is not the same as fighting darkspawn..." The stubbornness darkened to haunted memory that moved across her face like lengthening shadows. Her pupils were so wide and dark her eyes appeared almost black, ringed by just the faintest coronas of amber. Fear spilled from them like a void overflowing. "I've already seen you lying at my feet in a pool of blood. I don't think I can stand seeing that again."

The naked plea squashed Shianni's exasperation, but she hardened her own mettle in the fires of memory:

"I _lost_ that blood - and could not strike even one good blow to stop it. I _know_ I cannot stand that - I will not be that helpless again." Harshly, like metal grinding on stone, she drew out words she had never shared with anyone: "After you left, I'd lie awake and feel the walls closing in on me. I'd think of you - in the wide open world - and wonder if you finally felt compensated for not being the one the boys danced with. In the still hours, there was no-one to see the pettiness, the meanness of spirit, the poison. And during the day, there were the whispers, the sidelong glances that turned away when faced, the coward streets where people bolted doors and looked the other way. I'm not like you, Rilian. I can't dream inside walls and try to reshape them. I knew if I stayed I'd become another Elva. Here, I can breathe. And - maybe - for the first time I can dream." She chuckled softly, reached work-worn fingers to brush away Rilian's tears, "Mother told me stories of the past were no more than high notions, best forgotten. But the Dalish treasure them. Maybe I'll even learn to read - me, Shianni Tabris of Dock Street!"

Rilian was smiling softly, face suffused with tears. "I can see it - a shining path all fierce and beautiful. Not for my strong cousin the murky world of Wardens and shem politics."

Shianni smiled too. "I don't understand all the changes I see - I do understand the important things are unchanged."

Rilian flushed with pleasure; her lips quirked in quicksilver laughter. "Ditto," she answered - an old joke between them, a literary affectation she had explained meant: likewise.

* * *

Then Shianni grew drowsy and fell asleep - but Rilian did not want to sleep just yet. Her mind raced - an array of light and colour, thought and music and ideas. Behind them lay the stalking beat of memory: Howe's face, or Urthemiel's, like dark comets across her sleeping sky. She had managed only eight hours sleep in four days; it was as if an electrical force were keeping her eyes open. There was a continuous pain behind her upper eyelids; her temples throbbed. Freed from the anchoring shell of the Dragonscale, her body felt oddly weightless, adrift upon strange tides. Softly, so as not to disturb her cousin, she crawled forward, squirmed through the tent flap and found herself under a great black plate of sky, stars embedded like diamond chips. Ravenous was curled in sleep; she settled beside him, arms folded across her raised knees. Her head lolled.

_...The door burst open..._

Rilian snapped awake, goose-bumps the size of forts prickling her skin. She fixed her gaze upon the scarlet dots of campfires, studding the ground like dying stars. Waking dreams blossomed and faded: the flames detonated sparks like Dworkin's grenade; her hand had dark, flickering wings - a small reptilian creature with a serrated spine. Urthemiel's song flowed like cool silver water, encoffined by the oily filth of taint. Darkness congealed around her, thick and viscous, threaded with the rumble of a thousand snores and murmurs; pierced at random by the wails of children and yelps of dogs. The shuffling, hovering life was bordered by the sickle blade of river, bright as liquid starlight: an encircling wall...

_... Then Shianni grew drowsy and fell asleep - but Rilian did not want to sleep just yet, entranced by the newness and wonder of their night under the stars. She was tired - but with her tiredness showed itself in a certain exaltation of feeling and imagination. She wanted to lie awake for the pleasure of it and think over a thousand things. The stillness seemed to amplify her very thoughts, and the vast, inky bowl of sky became a playground for them. The crescent moon glowed like a softly-muted pearl. Did an old witch ride past on a broomstick? No, it was only a spring leaf upon the tip of a branch. __A faintly-golden star hung low in the sky, right overhead. Rilian gazed at it, enthralled, and recalled an old dream of hers in which the marbles her mother brought her were really jewelled stars, somehow huge and tiny at the same time. She spun a dream life, lived within that shining golden star._

_Then came drifts of dark clouds, visible only as ripples across the sky, the sudden absence of stars. Rilian saw them as an advancing host. She saw herself standing against them, doing something impossibly brave. She made a ballad on it - with herself as the heroine, of course - the lines singing themselves through her consciousness without effort. She was defending her people - fighting against many faceless enemies in a blaze of light._

_Rilian wriggled about - careful not to bump into Shianni, asleep in the nest of branches beside her - to look down upon those she was protecting. The encircling wall - so dark in daylight - seemed to reflect the moonlight like a blade of silver. The teeming houses nestled within, all stark, uneven angles like an array of dominoes, each individual square leaning on its neighbours for support. Nights in the Alienage were never silent: there was always the wail of babies, the murmur of voices, the yowl of fighting cats; it comforted and centered her. A quieter, deeper emotion flowed behind the dream of glory: she felt the anchor of her history, the tangled network of unbreakable loyalty, dug deep as the roots of the Vhenadahl. Above were its branches, proud as banners or bright sails, with moon and stars held between. She formed the link between her parents and her own dream-children. She was vast as an ocean above patchwork houses and winding streets, had watched the raising of that wall, had shared in all the lives and loves of those within. She felt as if she would live always…always…always…_

Rilian came back to flames that danced like autumn leaves. A gout of sparks lifted into the dark like stained glass in motion. Rilian thought of forge-fires, of Nelaros describing the smith's furnace, of how the light lured the mindless moths from darkness, inhaled them into consuming heat. She saw herself: a single, hissing spark.

_Why must we die? Our ancestors never did. We should be able to do without..._

Ravenous whimpered in sleep, making little snuffling noises as though chasing a fleet stag - or running from the flickering shadows that lurked at the edges of a Warden's mind. She murmured wordless comfort, slipped an arm around him, curled against muscles like giant walnuts beneath a warm, bristly carpet. She fell asleep nestled against the dog's side...

_...She was mounted upon her black horse. The Dragonscale was cold as ice around her body, yet it was all that held her upright. A dying sun flickered like a failing candle in a bitter wind. She was facing a wall of black oil a mile high. Waves formed __serrated edges that reared like towering wings. Life crawled sluggishly within: writhing, decaying, spawning; she had the inchoate sense that the millions stretched back across time as well as distance - back to the very founding of the Wardens._

_She realised she was not alone. She was riding beside Alistair on her left and Loghain on her right. And there was a fourth figure, obscure as her own shadow. She gazed at him with distant revulsion, cold and sickened by the sense of kinship. The wave sped towards her, swift as a shark, its inky depths black as open jaws. She did not flinch; did not flee, though she knew it would annihilate her when it crashed. She raised her sword high: a silver blade etched with bright runes. Against the engulfing dark, it glowed like the first rose of dawn. She realised - in a moment of soaring rapture - I am not afraid... It was better than music or maps or swordcraft - it was immortality._

_She thought of Zathrien - of the price he had paid to live forever - of the golems, trapped in shells of stone. She thought of the Alienage overlords: of a life spent in crippling fear. She could never forget how painful it was to be that helpless, how impotent hatred corroded the soul like acid._

_Each moment free from fear makes an Elf immortal..._

Overhead the stars blazed like a scattering of sparks - but sparks that would not die, that would never go out.


	13. Chapter 13: Invictus

_Author's Note: Yay - I updated! I am officially NOT DEAD :) I can only apologize to everyone who has waited for these chapters, and everyone to whom I owe emails, reviews, PMs and Betaring. Work, family, the London Wine Fair, the house move from hell, no internet for THREE WEEKS and an operation conspired against me._

_I found this quite hard to write - partly because I had to do it in such small doses and partly because I tried to cram too much in (Ril's hang-gliders ended up on the cutting-room floor!) Love and hugs to icey cold and Shakespira, who were there for me during my last-minute author-angst before posting and stepped up to do an excellent job as Betas._

_The following people have helped more than they know:_

_Tyanilth: our conversations have been food for thought, and your short fic "Cat's Cradle" is the best depiction of Ser Otto I've read._

_Josie: you write my favourite Jowan, and "Retribution" has some awesome Chantry/Orlesian politics._

_lisakodysam: your portrayal of the different spell schools and how they tie in with mage personality types from "In Blackest Envy" makes perfect sense._

_analect: for Elven pride and the Shianni perspective._

_Arsinoe: for suggesting that if Ril and Loghain were to forge an alliance before the Landsmeet, they might be in time to stop the horde before it reaches Denerim. What follows is down to you._

_icey cold: for the gruesome Serge/Evraille scene from Trovommi Amor._

_Shakespira: your theories on the origin of darkspawn from The Lion's Den are canon for me. Although DATM doesn't delve into the secrets of the past, the idea has been a major influence on the way I write darkspawn and the storyline I am working towards._

_Naomis8329: it was lovely to get a surprise review before I posted! :)_

_And special mention to Dragonracer13, my patient Betaree. I had the adorable Kallian in mind during the *skyball* reference - I couldn't resist!_

_Other influences: Elizabeth Moon's Paksennarion series (shout-out to fellow fan Tyanilth!) Guy Sajer: The Forgotten Soldier, Ernst Junger: Storm of Steel and Stephen Crane: The Red Badge of Courage. Film-wise it's got to be Gladiator, LOTR, Stalingrad and Death Watch. And slightly bizarrely I wrote most of this to Daniel Lanois: Acadie and Evanescence: Fallen... _

_Out of the night that covers me,  
Black as the pit from pole to pole,  
I thank whatever gods may be  
For my unconquerable soul._

_In the fell clutch of circumstance  
I have not winced nor cried aloud.  
Under the bludgeonings of chance  
My head is bloody, but unbowed._

_Beyond this place of wrath and tears  
Looms but the Horror of the shade,  
And yet the menace of the years  
Finds and shall find me unafraid._

_It matters not how strait the gate,  
How charged with punishments the scroll,  
I am the master of my fate:  
I am the captain of my soul._

William Ernest Henley

The first curve of the rising sun bloodied the new day.

"Form ranks!"

Cauthrien passed the order as she always did, her voice almost soft, disdainful of the parade-ground bellowing typical of other commanders. The last of Loghain's - no, _the Warden's _- troops fell into place; the Dalish and the Templars headed to the opposite side of the valley. The rose light turned the Hafter River into living green translucence. The splashing of their feet turned the water into hysterical brilliance.

The men snapped to attention as Loghain and the Warden walked slowly down the line. They cheered the Warden - their talisman, their good-luck charm - but at Loghain's approach they were watchful and respectful. He paused to draw a sword from a scabbard to check that it was properly sharpened - adjust a buckle on a young soldier's armour - opened several backpacks to make sure the equipment was properly stowed. He ordered one man to string his bow, then chewed him out over the fact that the string was not properly waxed and the ends were frayed.

After Loghain stepped past, Cauthrien gave the unfortunate a withering gaze and made a point of nodding toward the clean, battle-ready lines of the Dalish - a reminder that both units of archers were playing a vital role in the coming battle.

Loghain's four units of pikemen formed clean, regimented lines, weapons carried upright: a stark forest of iron trees. Those held by the men in the rear rank were fully twenty feet long. The first and second ranks held correspondingly shorter ones, so that when the butts were braced against the earth, the points were a uniform barrier of waiting steel.

The majority of Denerim's army was infantry: disciplined men who fought as units. In pairs, they moved as one: deflecting with shields to strike with shortswords; parrying with swords to smash with shields. They were accompanied by engineers, carrying portable barriers.

The portable barriers were Nathaniel's project. They were simple articles. The two ends were short poles lashed in a cross. Smaller poles lashed between provided strength while creating an encumbrance to the advancing darkspawn. Additionally, the connecting poles were strung with stout cord and metal hooks. Nevertheless, they could only be considered a nuisance - small, light and fairly quickly destroyed.

Dworkin made them deadly. Each barrier carried a small leather sack filled with the glittering black powder, containing his improved formula of lyrium sand, and a fuse somewhat longer than before. The accuracy of the "four-minute delay" remained questionable, but so far no-one had been injured during testing.

A flash of bright silver caught Cauthrien's eye. The Knight-Commander, in the mirror-bright Templar armour that shone like a beacon to approaching darkspawn. Cauthrien frowned, thinking of how harshly the woman had criticized Loghain and the Warden for the decision to have Jowan use his magic to provide long-range fire.

The source of the disagreement was standing a short distance away. The thin young mage was dressed in white-coloured tunic and trousers. He looked like a penitent. He shuffled his feet. The hesitancy was something Cauthrien had noticed before in mages: there was something indirect about them, a suggestion they viewed the world obliquely rather than head-on. The young man beside him was someone Cauthrien would have been pleased to number among her own soldiers. She did not suffer the self-consciousness others did when dealing with Ser Otto: her grandfather had been blind, and still the rock of her childhood. It was others who spoke tactlessly: people seemed to think a blind man lost hearing too, or maybe just wasn't man enough to matter.

Jowan and Ser Otto fell in behind Loghain. The mage's thin, reedy whine floated back to her: "I won't be able to keep up with these soldiers."

Loghain said: "You'll travel mounted, with my reserve. Our footpace is too much for you. I'll assign a man as escort. When we engage the darkspawn, I'll try to get word to you where I want you to use your spells. If I can't reach you, let the escort decide where you're to strike."

Jowan's jaw tightened. His mouth worked, biting off unspoken words. His Templar companion shrugged good-naturedly. "It's nothing personal. The Teyrn wouldn't act offended if you explained how magic works. All he's asking you to do is afford his assistant the same respect."

"He's telling me I don't belong, that only my magic is important. 'Warriors to the front - Jowan and Ser Otto to the rear with the women and children.'"

Cauthrien rolled her eyes. It was incredible that Jowan could say such a thing to the ex-Templar without a blush. For a moment, the knight's scarred face went rather still - then he gave a wry smile.

The marching drum rumbled its assembly call. The snakelike columns of men wound their way south of the valley in dun-coloured ribbons. The earth was churned in furrows underfoot, like freshly-tilled soil. The Warden and Loghain rode together in the middle of the second column, the red head and the black bent close over some discussion. How unlike they are, Cauthrien thought - and then a sudden perception startled her:

_The Warden takes what the world gives and uses it. Show her ten doors and she'll pick one without hesitation, and kick it open if it resists. She's in love: she wants to marry fate and sleep with glory._

_Loghain fights for Ferelden. She's no wife to him, doesn't warm his heart. Yet the need to defend her will always come first._

They're different. They're the same.

Sometimes, the Warden looked or spoke as if from another place. That was the only way Cauthrien could phrase it. When she was like that - and Cauthrien couldn't even describe any change in her appearance - the word that came to her was "mystic". Not like the Chantry's babble about Andraste and dark mages, but a sense of head-long, unpreventable consequence.

While the Warden seemed to have a sense of hanging on to a whirlwind that was taking her where she wanted to go, Loghain wanted control of his country and its destiny.

_Sooner or later those two are going to run head-on into each other. I hope they're going very slowly when it happens..._

* * *

The Warden seemed unusually chatty - her mood a little too buoyant for the gravity of the situation. For the most part, Loghain let the babble wash over him - paying attention only when she touched on the terrain, the Wardens or the coming battle. Youthfully straight, graceful in the saddle, vaguely improbable in the storybook armour. Occasionally, she sang - ballads that ranged from the patriotic to the obscene. He gritted his teeth through the rendition of an Orlesian ditty about the Empress' bedroom patrol - which she seemed to sing with particular relish. Somewhere between her talk of Anora's preparations in Denerim, she startled him with a personal question:

"What was Anora like as a child?"

Loghain's first instinct was to tell her to mind her own business. By chance, however, she had hit on the one subject - aside from his beloved Ferelden - that he could warm to. Though annoyed with himself for doing so, he answered her:

"So far as anyone could tell she was the undisputed monarch of the whole world," he said, his voice warming to the chuckle he felt, "She'd fall, skin her knees, and command them to stop stinging!"

"Did she have many friends?"

"Gwaren sits between the Brecilian forest and the south. There were always children to play with - charcoal burners' sons and daughters. They'd form into noisy gangs in the courtyard. But Anora never joined them."

"That sounds lonely."

"Perhaps it was. She read a great deal. She followed her mother like a shadow. She practiced archery and swordplay. She was never idle. Solitude isn't terrible, you know."

"I wouldn't know," the Warden said, "I've never been alone."

It struck Loghain that the Warden had once been a little girl. He saw her on the front step of an Alienage hovel, her chin on her knees and arms around hard skinny shins, scowling out at the world. Neither had he been alone as farmhand, outlaw and soldier. Privacy was an impossible thing on campaign - perhaps that was why the Warden felt so at home here.

"Well - except at Arl Howe's estate," the Warden added, more to herself, with an oddly flat half-smile. One hand absently reached for the thin scar across her left cheekbone: he wondered idly what weapon had made such a clean wound. It must have been during the murder - she had not had it before.

No - he had not been alone until Ostagar - until the bitter-cold throne of Ferelden's de facto ruler…

Catching his glance, the Warden gave a jaunty little shrug. "Oh – you know. When I hid in the attic, right over his magnificent four-poster bed, and oh-so-carefully lowered a basket to the floor. The speckled snake within crawled out very slowly...coiled around the foot of the bed...slithered into his nightshirt." She paused dramatically, heightening the suspense, then gave a mournful little sigh. "Alas, it was the snake that died of poisoning – so I had to finish the job myself."

Loghain rolled his eyes, mildly impressed that she had still not run out of Howe stories, and sighed.

"Well - one thing you'd better learn, Warden," he said, "If you're going to command, you'll have to accept being alone, clear through."

Riordan's scouting told them the darkspawn were spread in a sickle shape from north of Lothering to the western edge of the Drakon River, with the main bulk ravaging the southern Bannorn: the very lands of Loghain's childhood. By the second day, they saw the results themselves. Darkspawn predation was like flash fire: no habitation stood where they passed. They found the bodies of men, children, old women - but the myth that darkspawn did not take prisoners was exploded. Loghain caught himself remembering the occupation. He remembered eyes watering and nostrils smarting, assaulted by the stink of homes burning, of death pyres. Far, far back in his mind he heard the sound of women screaming. His mouth went dry. Not dry enough to kill the taste of battle, of smoke, of fear, of air redolent with blood. What they faced was worse - thanks to the Warden's explanation he knew the fate of women taken by darkspawn. He had never flinched at the notion of women fighting during the rebellion - the risks were no worse than the fate of those who did not - now the knowledge weighed on him. He had no choice but to hide his profane knowledge: nearly a sixth of the army were women - he could not send them home, or damage morale. But it felt murky, in a way hiding his knowledge of the Wardens' ultimate sacrifice did not. That was the duty and purpose of the Order after all. There were worse fates than a quick, glorious end.

Passing one such farmhold, they came upon the bodies of several fallen darkspawn. By night, the wolves of the area had gorged on them, taking in ruin and darkness along with their meal. Vultures gathered in a writhing cloud, screaming angrily at the disturbance. A thought struck Loghain, chilling: could the taint be spread by these airborne, doomed creatures? Uncovered now, they saw the decaying darkspawn flesh - the diseased skin torn by beaks in their haste to reach the entrails. The wind shifted, pulling the stench towards them. Their mounts gave a smothered squeal and shied away; Loghain spoke soothingly to his, calming the creature. The Warden dismounted and led her horse gently toward the mound of reeking flesh, stroking his muzzle. The animal stamped and blew, disgusted but reassured.

"Alistair told me you should always do that with whatever scares a horse," the Warden explained cheerfully.

Gliders and explosives notwithstanding, it was probably the most intelligent thing he'd seen this campaign. Trying to avoid awareness of her smug grin, he followed suit, accustoming his own mount to the scent of darkspawn.

"I didn't know there were so many vultures in Ferelden," the Warden said - the greenish tint of her face making it clear she was talking to keep her breakfast down. "What do you suppose they live on, when there's no fighting?"

"There's always fighting. War's a game that never ends."

Loghain continued to educate his Commander on tactics and strategy. Often, during those discussions, he would forget it was not one of his fellows he was talking to - until some careless soldier's bluntness set the Warden's back up like a ruffled cat. Her prickliness was rarer now: rough, wary, touchy, their contact was warmed by a secret, mutual enjoyment of each other's challenges. That afternoon, she presented him with a long leather tube: in return, she said, for the lessons. He would have gruffly told her it was in everyone's interests she reach at least some level of competence, but for the little smirk that told him he was the butt of some joke. He unrolled the gift to find a beautifully detailed map of Ferelden - and no familiar landmarks, strategic markings, or trade routes in sight. All it contained was a series of illustrations of herbs and flowers. Militarily useless, it told him where to find these rare botanist's specimens. "I thought you might need a break from defending borders," she told him, her suppressed grin now spiralling out of control.

By the time the sun sank toward the western horizon, there was no longer any doubt they faced a land choked by Blight: dark, tentacular ribbons of taint wormed across soil - the hills and forests east of the Drakon River seemed to hold up a sky like a pewter bowl. Clouds merged into amorphous, ever-changing shapes like half-forgotten ghost stories. An oily richness crept through the air at the edges of their vision, drop by drop like congealing blood. Crows, swift black darts across the swirl, were eerily furtive. Loghain chose to camp upon a series of hills nestled into a fork of the Drakon River, its dark iridescent sheen forming a natural moat. Had they pressed on, they could not have remained unseen against that pale grey soil, where every protuberance was marked by dark shadow.

Eamon and the supply train caught up just as the dying sun streaked a purple smear across the horizon. The south was an empty deadness stretching into infinity, bleak dunes against which the distant, dark-crawling mass stood out starkly. Eamon, Bryland and Nathaniel Howe joined him as he stood at the edge of camp, staring outward. Eamon looked old and ill, visibly affected by the loss of familiar dimensions: the enclosing mountains around Redcliffe, the blue arc of Lake Calenhad, his political machinations. He looked away from the unknowable vastness and unfurled a map.

"I...believe this field is named Taskerdell. Beyond is...is Longmeadow, nestled in the arch of the West Road. That...that black cloud must be what the Orlesian Warden terms a "Blightstorm"- though he refused to explain what..."

Loghain turned to him in dark, clipped fury. "This was _farmland_," he grated out, "They've corrupted the very earth our country is built on. Who cares what the field was called, or what a Blightstorm is - look at what's left: it's obscene!"

The three men stared at him. Loghain knew it was unusual for him to convey so much passion. He saw the vision go through the pale faces like slow ice. They saw it, then: the glistening horror, the sparse, starved trees that littered, rather than bordered, the field's edges. The roiling mass was a greasy black pall drifting sluggishly north. They avoided looking at it after that. And did not speak of it.

Loghain called for the leader of the scout squad he had sent to inspect the surrounding area, sitting him down in the command tent with the Warden and the Banns. The youngster was clearly awed to be the centre of attention, but when asked what he had discovered, he answered confidently. Loghain made a point of knowing all his soldiers' names: this rawboned former farmer was Carver Hawke, who had served at Ostagar. A fine young soldier - cut from different cloth than the mother and sister who camped among the refugees and did nothing but complain, possessing a sense of entitlement that would have done the Banns proud, had they any standing to back it up.

Carver shifted his feet, looking at the ground.

"You did well. Tell Captain Varel I compliment him."

The young man saluted and swaggered off. Loghain was pleased to see him break into a self-satisfied smile when he thought he was unobserved. That sort of spirit would prove vital in the coming battle.

* * *

The final War-Council was nothing like the first. The broader strategy had been decided; Rilian let Loghain handle the practical details, listened carefully, and learned. "Ferelden's infantry and the Templars will remain north, under my command." He sketched the position on the map, then illustrated the tactical withdrawal and encirclement. "The Dalish and Night Elves will attack from either flank, from the forests of South Reach and the Imperial Highway north of Lothering. Warden: the cavalry must leave an hour before dawn, and head south, then west. The forest will cover you until you reach the gully - here. When I give the signal, drop onto the rear and flank of the horde main strength."

With any luck, the magical contribution of Merrill, Velanna and Morrigan would remain unnoticed by their Templar allies - and Wynne was trusted as much as they trusted any Circle mage. But Rilian was not surprised to see Rylock lean forward, renewing her argument regarding Jowan. That long-boned face - hard as a winter vegetable - was set into unyielding planes. Rilian pictured the decades fighting the worst abuses of magic - and after the horrors at the Circle Tower and Arl Howe's estate she had some idea what that entailed. The worst use of magic she had ever seen - the creation of a plague that targeted one race and spared another - still filled her with cold rage. She could see what those years had added to Rylock, and what they had taken away. Her face was scored by icy courage. But she was alone.

"A mage may prove useful in times of war - under strict supervision," the Templar told her - that curiously flat monotone was something Rilian had noticed before: only Alistair and Ser Otto seemed immune. Dry, distant, professional - lifeless. "But there is no place in Thedas for a Blood Mage. The mere knowledge warrants a sentence of death."

"So does murder," Rilian blurted before she thought, "And yet - I was conscripted. The authority of the Wardens supersedes that of the Chantry - as you well know."

Rylock's frown came slowly, unusually delicate - the expression of someone noting but choosing to ignore a regrettable descent into bad taste. Rilian blushed - aware of the scrutiny of the nobles at the round table; Loghain's exasperated frown. Arl Urien was dead - but Vaughan had had friends here...

"The Wardens have ever been a home for murderers and maleficars," the woman acknowledged dryly.

Rilian leaned forward - meeting the glittering dark eyes - ticked off a couple of seconds until she could warm Rylock with her sincerity. "I give you my word: I will not permit the use of Blood Magic against another living soul. Only against the darkspawn." Guiltily, she tried to avoid the memory of Jowan healing her with Howe's blood - those shimmering amorphous red tendrils of life. Writhing...coalescing...crawling... Nausea rose in her; she paled with the effort of hiding it.

"You do not understand the ways in which magic works," the Templar countered, "The knowledge of Blood Magic, once gained, cannot be unlearned. It becomes part of the whole: a drop of red dye in water. To expect the maleficar to use only permitted magics is like...like asking him to see only green, or only red. The only way to choke this addiction is to cut it off at the root: expecting the Blood Mage to only use his power at your behest is like expecting a drunk to take only a sip of wine - one sip, no more."

The Knight-Commander would know all about addiction, Rilian thought, remembering Alistair's words. She kept the thought to herself. It did not diminish Rylock's point. The Templars' use of lyrium to counter magic was no more unpleasant and no less necessary than the Wardens' Joining - a thing that blighted their older years for the sake of protecting others. All it meant was that Rylock knew of what she spoke. "I will not ally myself with a force equal to the worst excesses of the darkspawn," Rylock stated flatly, "We Templars will fight: but it must be the right fight."

Before Rilian could speak, Loghain beat her to it, irritation rolling off him in waves. "Madam: you have never been a soldier. The right fight ends when the dust has cleared and you're still standing. The wrong fight ends when you do."

Was that it, Rilian wondered - was that why she and Loghain saw things differently to Rylock? A good Templar - like a good Guardsman - was incorruptible. A soldier understood what war required.

"I assure you," Rylock countered, "That whatever lives this Blood Mage might save will not be outweighed by those lost should he lose control. Each time he uses Blood Magic - each time he accepts that power - he moves one step closer to becoming an abomination. You tested the black powder until you created a reliable mix - you cannot test for the point at which Jowan breaks."

Rilian struggled against the memories of Jowan's spell: the drowning...the sinking ship. It had only been the Joining that allowed her to resist. A mage could use the litany of Adralla; for everyone else, there was no defence. She countered it with memories of Jowan standing beside her...Jowan's willingness to redeem himself, even if it meant risking his very soul in the Fade with Connor.

"You're comparing Jowan with a mindless piece of equipment," she began slowly, searching for words to break through the uncompromising steel, "Your assumption is based on the idea that Jowan _is_ his magic - a thing, as the lyrium dust is a thing: that he does not choose, or believe, or have worth as a person. As a man - I trust him."

Rylock received this argument with a closed face. Rilian stopped and studied her, trying to see past her face into her mind. Rylock was as closed as a piece of flint. In an effort to rally her thoughts, Rilian poured more wine for herself, and drank it rather too quickly.

"Do you think a mage can't be honest?" she asked softly, "Do you think that talent - an accident of birth - precludes loyalty? Or compassion? Or ethics?"

Still Rylock didn't shift - sitting as ramrod straight as though born with a sword for a spine. "In the end," she articulated flatly, "No mage is loyal to anyone but himself. That's the nature of power. It seduces - it requires. A mage can appear loyal only so long as his power and his loyalty don't come into conflict. The magic teaches them - no, it _forces_ them - to believe they're more important than other people. Because they can _do_ more. They have the power to remake the world in their own image. If they're smart enough, and strong enough, and nobody gets in their way, they can change the outcome of the world. So how can they let anything stand in their way? How can they submit to any kind of control? They can't, Warden - you'll find out that they can't. And when you find that out, you'll find out they're your enemy. Even if you think Jowan honest now, and loyal, and trustworthy, you'll learn that he wants you dead. You'll learn that it's better for him to use Blood Control than take the risk you might get in his way."

The virulence - not of Rylock's tone but of her belief - shocked Rilian. The chilling memory of the time Jowan _had_ used that spell on her washed through her in a wave of ice. He had been desperate - and scared - and acting on Howe's orders: but he had done it.

"What would he have to do to make you trust him?" she snapped, the memory making her savage, "Slaughter every mage ever born? Exterminate talent from the world?"

With a small flick of her hand, Rylock dismissed the protest. "Even that would not be enough. The mage I trust is the one who kills himself."

Rilian met that flat glittering stare - no shades of grey, no depth of vision - with a complex inward shudder. Then came a chilling comprehension. As a mage-hunter, Rylock was at a level of commitment people never achieved under normal circumstances. Nor could anyone hope to do so for long and remain normal. This woman who would have no husband, no children - all normal emotion channelled into ideals - a dried haw withered on a dead stem. In that moment Rilian touched the edges of her being - felt the lightest tremor of the blood-race of fanaticism.

She loathed that contact.

_They have the power to remake the world in their own image. So how can they let anything stand in their way?_

Rylock was right: she knew mages who met that description. Uldred had been one of them. Zathrien too, in his quest to avenge his family. They had murdered those who stood in their way. Innocents, who knew nothing of "The Sacred Cause".

_It isn't magic that corrupts - it's having power..._

She knew non-mages who met that description. Branka, in her quest to regain the Dwarven heritage. Loghain - who would let nothing stand in the way of protecting Ferelden.

_We can make a better world than this. I have power now - I lead these armies. I'll demand justice for our people..._

If she meant it - really meant her words to Shianni - she might be one herself.

"No, Warden," Rylock said like a sharp stone, "You cannot sway me with well-intentioned arguments. Cold corpses argue louder than abstract notions of redemption."

Numb, shaken, Rilian could only say flatly, "It is not your choice to make, Knight-Commander. Jowan numbers among the Wardens." And nobody around the table would know that calling Jowan a Warden did not make him one. "He is therefore under command of Weisshaupt. The Grand Cleric may take the matter up with _them_ - after Ferelden is secured. For now, I promise you this: I will forbid the use of Blood Magic, even against darkspawn - Jowan will have to fight by normal spells. Ser Otto will be there to hold him to it - and strike him down if he fails. Will that do? Because it's _all_ I can promise."

The silence stretched tautly. Finally, Rylock nodded. Her voice was chill and dark.

"That will do, Warden - for now."

Implicit in that was the promise that she would bring the matter before the Grand Cleric as soon as the war allowed.

Rilian decided that she and Jowan would have to take what breathing space they could. Jowan's future was no less secure than her own - and, she thought sourly, the only doubt was _when_ she would die against the Archdemon, not if.

Rilian poured herself another glass.

* * *

In the dark, the slumbering camp nestled like a ghostly half-way house between the world Rilian knew and the wasteland beyond - caught between life and death as between night and morning. She shook off the thought, concentrating instead on how the hill jutted like a dockside wharf over the unknowable blackness of ocean. Tents formed a domino-like patchwork reminiscent of home; some formed sleek, triangular shapes, black and glistening as the fins of sea creatures, rimed with moonlight. Rilian remembered the kites she and Soris had flown as children, made of waxed cloth over a latticework of Vhenadahl bark. She thought of the gliders - as yet existing only in her mind - of dragon wings...

Softly - more softly than she had ever managed - Rilian ducked back inside the tent she shared with Shianni. A tender smile quirked her lips as she glanced at her cousin - curled as neatly and tidily as she did everything else. Making no more noise than the rats that scampered across their kitchen floor, she gathered backpack and belongings and pieces of armour. She buckled these on outside. Dying campfires dotted the ground in little glittering blisters: rust-coloured scabs across the black-and-white patchwork. Snail-trails of smoke rose like the ghosts of tadpoles. Her men were gathered by the narrow silty stream that trickled greasily past: the knights of Redcliffe, Denerim's small cavalry unit, and Sten.

Before she joined them she spoke to each of her companions, her instructions quiet and matter-of-fact. Morrigan's primal magic would complement the skills of Pir Surana's archers - her ability to shapeshift would lend her all the stealth she needed. Leliana and Zevran would join her. Oghren was fighting under Cauthrien's command, though they had clashed several times over the Dwarf's drinking. No more than Wynne clashed with Loghain - yet her healing spells would prove vital to the infantry. And Rilian was forced to tell a horrified Jowan that he must prevail with primal spells alone: the use of Blood Magic, even against darkspawn, was not permitted. She did not linger over goodbyes. As with Shianni, the farewell that mattered had been spoken. Rilian headed toward where Racer was tied. She stroked the silky mane - leaned against the bunched power, the warm solidity like the hearth in which a great fire burned. She turned - there was Shianni coming towards her. Rumpled from sleep, her hair held more expression than other people's faces. Her normally steady amber eyes were bright and changeable as music. Rilian expected to be taken to task for not waking her - but her cousin only shook her head and said softly, "I'll relay your instructions to the Dalish."

Rilian blinked. "You don't have to take messages for me."

Shianni smiled as though Rilian were being dense. "You're a General, now, cousin - you need to concentrate on winning us the battle." She said it lightly, but with more than a touch of pride.

"You seem very cheerful?"

Shianni made a strange sound, somewhere between a sniff and a snort. Her lower lip quirked oddly. "I know we may be killed today. But at least it's our choice. At least it's an honourable death." A strange look flitted over her face, twisting her features as though she might suddenly burst into tears. "While I was...with Vaughan...a quick, clean death seemed like it would be a wonderful thing."

Rilian hugged her, as well as she could through the chill Dragonbone. Shianni held her for a moment, ruffled her hair, and let go.

"But I suppose I must stay alive for now. Uncle needs me - and you need someone to tell you what to do!" She sighed, straightened up, and stepped back. She made Rilian relay the instructions, repeating them until she had them right. "Good luck, cousin - Warden-Commander, I mean."

Rilian stepped forward, hands outstretched, but Shianni had already turned, heading toward the dark-shrouded Dalish camp.

Rilian whistled Ravenous to her and walked to her first command.

Dawn was an hour away, but the camp was teeming with furtive, whispering activity: the sounds and smells were alive as the Alienage nights had been; fear coated them like sweat. In the shuffling, hovering darkness, preparations were made. Confidences, never before spoken aloud, some never before thought through to conclusions, were shared. Those who slept at all twitched and muttered. Others lay in silent wakefulness, intrigued by living as only those aware of death's hovering presence can be.

* * *

Jowan rolled slowly off his sleeping roll and pulled on his clothes. His meagre belongings took on strange, threatening shapes in the stifling blackness; his frayed backpack sulked in one corner in dishevelled, abject misery. Compared with the conditions he was used to - the airless sarcophagus of the apprentice dorms, saturated with the snores and farts of hundreds; the countless nights on the run spent shivering in ditches - having his own tent and drawing a ration of army food was luxury. The Chantry bitch had tried to insist he share the tent with his keeper - Ser Otto himself had shot that down. Jowan had known several Templars who liked nothing better than to abuse the mages in their care - Ser Otto was not one of them. Clearly, the knight had better things to do than share his space with a scrawny, fear-sodden apostate. Which, considering Jowan's intentions, was a mercy.

His mind chased dark, winding trails - like the hunted stag that scarcely knows it runs. He saw the Warden's face: leaner and harder than the young woman who had rescued him from the Arlessa's dungeon, drawn into planes and angles that spoke of years lived in months. The cool disinterest of her instructions: "No Blood Magic - not even against the darkspawn. Use primal spells only." This - after he had healed her with Blood Magic; after she had promised that fighting darkspawn was the right use of its power!

Wisps of memory fluttered like thistledown: of fearfully-hissed incantations under bedside covers - the smell of books and mould and dust of ages - the gnawing unease as the spells trickled like sludge from a stagnant pool while Thomas' flowed like a bright river. The fear that grew like a terrible second heartbeat as his Harrowing approached. He had never envied Thomas his brilliance - only for being the kind of person who never ran from anything - but it had been a compulsion with him to hide his struggles. Once again, he felt that insidious hum along his veins; the whisper of the Fade monster which, like a soft-bodied maggot, had burrowed unerringly toward the hollow core of his mana, growing to fill what emptiness it enlarged, offering an alternative.

_Use primal spells only._ How - when he could barely light a candle with them!

The river of memory flowed onward: the bargain made, the horrified delight when Senior Enchanter Uldred complimented him on his progress. And then: sweet notes that made his soul sing - an auburn-haired lass kneeling in the Chapel... She had been everything that was good and pure; it had seemed a miracle that this exquisite starry girl returned his love. For the first time, he had allowed himself to dream: wild, sweet, secret dreams he had known could never - should not - come true. Her presence had burned away the thrum of yearning beneath his veins and the terrors of the future. He had dreamed of giving up his magic - all magic - and settling down in a farmers' cottage. Jowan, who had come to the Tower when he was four years old, had never even cooked a meal for himself; he would have learned, for her sake...

And then had come the accusation of Blood Magic - Knight-Commander Greagoir's signature approving the Rite of Tranquillity. With the desperation of a drowning man - an addict for whom cunning outlasts conscience - he had lied to Thomas, and lied to Lily, and involved them in his escape.

Time rushed to meet him; images blossomed like repeated lightning flashes. The burn of adrenaline - the thrill of triumph - the dumb horror as the armoured figures approached. And then the blind rage - the glittering thrum in opened veins that reared up like a nest of snakes. The iron-scented coils - like reddish-brown curtains - writhing, coagulating, spawning. The Templars left to bleed out their lives on the Tower floor - the unimaginable sight of Thomas, collapsed beside them with the jerky meaninglessness of a broken marionette.

Jowan had not waited - too frozen by horror even to check whether Thomas was still alive. Instincts learned from the days of his mother's strap took over - he bolted for the door and ran till his breath was a knife in his lungs.

The Templars had caught him. Like a hunted fox, he had run through all his tricks - reflexes and cunning quickly mapped, countered and contained. The numbing shock of their powers, hitting from several directions at once - a lightning bolt through body and mind like the childhood fits he had outgrown. And then - rescue. Soldiers in grey-and-yellow livery, promising redemption. A task for the Regent, against a treacherous noble...

His mind balked, fragmented. He replayed the terror and triumph of his journey to the Fade - the one time he had refused to run. But it had made no difference: he saw again those two old men - sporting near-identical beards that entered a room as an advance guard for the rest of them. One with pretensions of nobility; the other of wisdom. Sadly - gravely - solemnly, Arl Eamon and First Enchanter Irving had decided his fate. He saw the Warden: sweat-matted hair hanging in limp, rust-coloured strands across a face softer than it was now, staring between them with the blankness of exhaustion. She had argued for him - but in her eyes had been a kind of hopeless resignation: the a-priori assumption that she could do nothing against mages and nobles. Irving's dry, scholarly explanation of the Rite had gone over her head. "Will he be harmed?" she had asked - and Irving had assured her he would not.

Liar.

When the First Enchanter told him what had been done to Thomas he had wanted to howl his grief. Could any harm be as vicious, as irreversible, as the Rite that had turned his friend - full of talent and drive and that brilliant quirky sense of humour - into an automaton. More than anything else, it had been the prospect of seeing Thomas again - working in the Circle stockroom, void eyes blank as blue chips - that had filled him with nauseous horror.

And so he had run. Back into the waiting arms of Arl Howe, and the thrum of Blood Magic...

Remorse lay a bitter blade through his heart; he wanted time to unroll its scroll and let him undo the bargain. He would have been made Tranquil - but Lily would still be singing in the Chapel, though the notes would have meant no more to him than mathematical equations - Thomas would still be pranking the Knight-Commander. But time flowed like a great river: always one way, always down to death. He swallowed the knotted anguish - in all its confusion of meanings and feelings - and tried to focus on the present. He could not survive the battle - he could not be what the Warden wanted: those several, contradictory things she wanted. He swallowed hard, and felt an insidious relaxation. He had tried - he had failed - he should have expected that. It wasn't his fault - he had done his best...

Upon the tent roof, the first desultory needles of oily rain pattered down. No matter. Jowan was used to being soaked through, dog-tired, and on the run. Cat softly, he made his way past the tent flap. The stars were like tiny ice crystals. With the swift silence that had seen him through many midnight trysts with Lily, he headed for the horses on their picket lines. Looming, vaguely threatening shapes showed up as a deeper darkness against the pearly dark-grey river.

Jowan disliked horses. They bit. They kicked. When he mounted, they schemed to throw him off. When he rode, they chafed his crotch and pounded his backside. He was still sore from yesterday's riding. The prospect of further such indignity was a torment worthy of the most perverted mind.

He had no choice. He wouldn't get far on foot. The Templars wouldn't let anything as trivial as a war get in the way of their Sacred Duty.

A soft footfall behind him nearly made him jump out of his skin. Jowan froze for long minutes - an animal with only one thought - his blood turned to ice. Slowly, the realisation trickled through his fear numbed brain that the steps were slow - oddly hesitant - nothing like the iron-shod bootfalls of a Templar. He smelled his own acrid sweat, mingled with the rain on the wool of his cloak, and took several long breaths.

The stars wheeled further into their turns.

Jowan reached the horses. They were demonic in the blackness, strange and alien, the raw animal smell overpowering. They snorted and stamped and blew. Faint wisps of breath rose in lacy curlicues; a sensory memory of his mother's embroidery fluttered through his mind. Jowan hesitantly put out a hand: a blind, white cave-creature fumbling in the dark. The horse nudged him. Encouraged, he wrapped his sweating palm around the hilt of his small knife. He raised his arm - about to cut the rope.

The cursed creature head-butted him. Jowan windmilled backwards - the blade drew a painful line across his palm. Hissing in shock, he smelled the familiar iron-scented yearning; the low hum of forbidden power roared to life.

A hand grasped his shoulder. Its palm was dry and hard - he could feel the years of gauntlets and sword-grips and hard training. He felt the low, familiar hum - the aura that turned the choppy waters of mana to a dead ice-crusted lake. A bolt of terror arced through him like lightning.

Templar...

* * *

Ser Otto dreamed in colour.

Since the maleficar had darkened his world in a burst of flame, his dreams were of a new order. No narrative, no familiar faces, just forces, as if giant colours or weights drenched or tore him. A colossal wave at his back - a wall of black oil a mile high - advanced towards him. Its shadow crept towards a goblet of cool silver water in front. He always turned and faced it, though he knew it must annihilate him when it crashed. But it never crashed at all. It engulfed him and forced him to bear its weight.

He woke lying on his back upon the familiar hardness of his sleeping roll, callused hands behind his head, staring up into impenetrable darkness. Not that being able to see the roof of his tent would have proven any more exciting. One might say there was more scope for imagination without. He could powder it with brilliant stars; a swirl of light like the skyball he had owned as a child. He could sketch the beauty of the Bannorn in springtime; the wavering branches that had sheltered him as he sunbathed in his father's fields.

Ser Otto came to himself, a little embarrassed by the flight of fancy; surely unseemly in a Templar knight. The reality was rain: staccato needles upon the acrid-smelling leather, and the familiar belongings laid out with the discipline of Templars the evening before. He rose and dressed, moving with unerring precision, then pushed open the tent flap.

He could tell at once that it was perhaps an hour before dawn. The faint sighs and murmurs of camp were too wakeful for night-time and too muted for morning. The air was chill upon his nose and cheeks, but did not have the bite of midnight - its edge was softened by the faint currents of dawn's warmth rolling in from the east. The rain fell in an uneven patchwork upon the areas of his scalp that still had feeling, and those that did not. It anchored him. The shimmering curtain of sound gave shape to the void as the Maker had done. Its rhythm against leather sketched the positions of tents for him; the soft wet splatter into mud drew a trail to follow. The scent of damp loam went up his nostrils - along with the bitter hemlock of taint. It puzzled him - he knew the General would never camp in an area obviously Blighted, but he could sense the wrongness spreading like poison through the veins of the earth. To the east, the droplets stirred the stale water of the Drakon River - he caught the sharp tang of the tethered horses. It woke memories of tending the Chantry's horses: they owned more than the rest of Ferelden combined. The army camp was a map, recalled as precisely as the chess matches he played with his charge - he only needed Jowan to call out his moves. He had taught Rilian - _The Warden-Commander_, he reminded himself, to give her her due - the game when he had first met her in the Alienage; he remembered it as though it had been yesterday.

Five years ago, after the sunburst that had reached searing tendrils through eyes and skin, Knight-Commander Tavish had assigned him to the Alienage. Had he stayed, he would have been a living reminder to the young recruits of the cost of service. The same reasoning pensioned off the older lyrium-addled generation - those not fortunate enough to die in battle. His task had been to escort Revered Mother Boann as she distributed alms, performed ceremonies, and taught at her school - though it had been she who had steadied his steps, and not the other way round. One morning, when she had been late, and the Arl's soldiers had sniggered at his faltering steps, a stranger had offered an arm. Unlike the roses and violets of clerical robes, her tunic had smelled of salt and brine; her hand firm and callused from lifting crates. "_I don't need pity_," he had snapped - for he had been very afraid of kindness back then. "_Just as well_," had come the low pure alto, "_I had to waste mine on those ignorant shems who never learned basic manners_." The response had startled him into becoming her friend - and thereafter they had sat beneath the Vhenadahl when she came off shift, in the darkness that made them equals, and shared stories. He had made the world outside the Alienage visible to her - and she had answered his tales with scurrilous anecdotes: who was courting who in the Alienage, which guardsman had been Helm-Piddle's latest target - and which Templars she had seen by the docks, slipping a backhander for a crate of lyrium to go...missing. He had sternly felt she should be reproved - but been undone by an unholy desire to laugh. Thereafter, she and the young Mother had become his friends; he had moved into the cottage beside the schoolroom and they had visited - or he had visited the Warden and her father, who had made minor miracles with the food he bought with his small pension. Mother Boann had shared her plans to expand the school and he had thought them wonderful; a hand up rather than a hand-out. He had been alternately amused and horrified by the Warden's not-so-subtle attempts at matchmaking, and had explained the vows they had taken. It had almost been enough to squash the smothered yearning for roses and violets and soft laughter...

He thought of the young cleric, and the black sorrow pierced him. Would it - could it have been different if he had told her? Might she not have gone to Ostagar? But the very thought was insulting: she would no more have refused to go than he would have refused his calling. Such a woman - after such a death - would have gone straight to the Maker's arms; it was ridiculous - arrogant - to picture her shade hanging around unsatisfied because of him.

Deep in thought, Ser Otto had not realised his feet were following their own trail, down to the tethered horses and the ripple in the air he was not aware of consciously. Not until the luminous blaze blossomed against the darkness. It was not vision that decoded the ripple in the Fade - but he experienced it as sight. Just as his fellow Templars appeared as cobalt blue: lit like dim flames by the lyrium in their veins - so a mage burned like a white sun. The figure was moving furtively; he sensed a trickle like treacle beneath the dull flow of mana: a darker, thicker current. And he heard the jingle of harness...smelled the rain upon woollen cloak and leather. It was far too early for anyone but the cavalry to leave. He stepped forward - gripped his charge by the thin shoulder.

"Jowan."

A smothered yelp - a sudden sharpening of sweat - a rustle as the mage spun round.

"I wasn't...I was just...that is, I..."

"What you are doing is attempting to desert. What I don't understand is - why?"

"Why? _Why?_" The voice came out thinner and higher. "Because I can't do what the Warden expects! I know - I feel - that Blood Magic is the only way I can - and she wants me to do it without! I could never master so much as a simple primal spell - I couldn't have passed my Harrowing - I'm going to be killed today, and so are you!"

Something about the babble of words puzzled the Templar. "I was not aware the Circle were so lacklustre in their training. If you were having problems studying, didn't you ask someone for help?"

"No," Jowan muttered.

"You know," Ser Otto began as delicately as his nature allowed, "If you'd just tell the whole damn truth to start with, we wouldn't have these little problems."

"I know. But if they'd known...you don't know what the Tower was like. It's better for them to make a child Tranquil than take the risk he might lose control. Damn it - mages aren't monsters!" His voice echoed loudly, edging toward hysteria, and he bit the sound off.

"I know - the Warden told me - what you did to rescue the possessed child; I don't know many men who would have been as brave. You defeated a demon - and you must have done that by normal spells. Using Blood Magic in a demon's realm would have opened you to possession. If that isn't passing your Harrowing, I don't know what is. You have a storyteller's instinct, that's all, that lets you talk yourself helpless."

"That was one demon - not a whole horde of darkspawn."

"And this time you'll have an army between you and them. You said it yourself," he reminded with a hint of a dry chuckle, "_Jowan and Ser Otto to the rear with the women and children_. Besides, even if we fail, you'll at least die a man and not an Abomination."

"And _you'll_ go straight to the Maker's side!" Jowan shouted furiously, "You Templars are all the same - so damn worried about gaining your foothold in the Golden City you don't care about the rest of us! It's not enough to have the best of everything down here - you have to lord it over us up there too..."

He was shouting - sweating - the Veil crackled like the air before thunder. Ser Otto felt the pressure of something dire building - he knew when Jowan gestured with a hand that trailed the iron scent of his own blood that he was losing control.

"Jowan..." he warned dangerously.

The iron swirled around him - and a hot fist seemed to squeeze the Templar's heart in his chest. Memory...

..._He burned in a fire that reached molten tendrils through his veins; turned his blood to lava. Flames seared his lungs; burned his eyes to nothing. Voices swam around him, half-drowned through the roar in his ears. Ser Tavish called on him to hold the line, to stand against the Blood Mage, to endure. Those had been his last orders...the Knight-Commander trusted him to hold..._

He forced one breath after another through stiff lips, felt his heart settle once more into a steady rhythm. He had faced the worst of Blood Magic...he could handle one adolescent tantrum. His powerful arm came up and smashed Jowan in the face...the pressure vanished...a dull thud and squelch as he hit the muddy ground.

"You stupid, stupid fool," Ser Otto sighed, exasperated. He knelt, made sure Jowan was still breathing, then cocked his head, listening in all directions. Could he be lucky enough that no-one had heard the yelling? No - there was the sound of iron-shod boots - and the blue sparkle of lyrium-fired veins. For the first time, he inwardly groaned at the approach of one of his own, his mind racing quickly. Ser Otto had never lied since the day he took his vows...but as a boy he had had long practice coming up with excuses for his feckless younger brother.

"Ser Otto?" Damn - it was Ser Rylock!

He turned - stood awkwardly, and saluted. "Knight-Commander. I am...as you see...attempting to rouse my charge. You were right to insist I share his tent. In my absence, he has managed to drink himself into a stupor before the battle - I am trying to wake him."

A long silence. Only ingrained Templar discipline kept him from shifting from foot to foot. Finally, a dry, mirthless huff.

"Mages," the Knight-Commander muttered in disgust, "And they ask why we need to watch over them."

She waited a moment, turned smartly, and he heard the wet sound of her footsteps receding. He waited till they blended into the sensuous forest of sound before attempting to wake Jowan.

A change in the quality of silence told him the mage was awake. His skin prickled - he felt the eyes on him.

"You hit me," came the hoarse whisper, sounding half-muffled through an obviously-broken nose.

"That I did. You used Blood Magic."

A long silence - the faint dry rustle of cloth. Was he up to magic again? But Ser Otto felt nothing out of the ordinary. "I'm sorry," came the low mutter, "I shouldn't have done that."

"Indeed. Where would you be if you'd killed me, eh?"

"I... didn't mean to. I just lost my temper." It sounded sulky - but then, Jowan's face must have hurt a lot.

"And you wonder why I won't let you ride off into the sunrise? Should I believe freedom will teach you restraint? Or mercy? Yes, it's hard on mages to give up their freedom - but it's hard on everyone else when they abuse their powers! I can't allow that: I can't have you - _trying_ - to control yourself, and not doing it."

A sigh, then, long and gusty. "What are you going to do with me?"

"I ask myself that. I should have let the Knight-Commander kill you. But I'll tell you what: I need you to be my eyes in the coming battle, and you give me something to do."

"You'll let me live because I give you something to do?"

"Yes. But use Blood Magic just once more and you're dead."

A hesitation. "What do you want me to do?"

"For one thing, you can guide me to the supply tent; I'm hungry."

Jowan mumbled and huffed, sounding almost affronted to have the knight interested in something else. "We may die with full bellies, but we're still going to die - if the Warden didn't want me to use Blood Magic, she should have said so before."

Ser Otto did not like the self-righteous whine in that voice. As far as he was concerned, Blood Mages had no right to be self-righteous.

"And then," he continued, as if Jowan had not spoken, "We're going to spend the time we have practicing fighting in tandem. You have basic spells - you have a staff - and you'll be able to tell me where to swing my mace..."

"Oh, Maker."

"...and afterwards - if we survive - I'm going to send you to Senior Enchanter Wynne, whom we are fortunate to have with us."

"Wynne the Wise? Just kill me now..."

The two headed to the supply tent, where Cyrion was making a hot mixed grain mash for the men. Ser Otto's stomach rumbled loudly - he never ate so well as before a battle. Jowan complained that he couldn't eat a bite. They sat with a group of refugees - Ser Otto heard them exclaiming over Jowan's face and muttering darkly about Templar brutality. Jowan accepted the sympathy with a martyred voice.

It was going to take all Ser Otto's training to maintain his temper - and then only in the belief that the Maker was testing him. Whether or not he passed the trial remained to be seen. Ser Otto would not have laid bets on himself.

* * *

Rilian and her cavalry rode down the eastern slope, guiding their horses carefully across the rocky scrub, past the eerily glinting river that flowed with the toxic heaviness of mercury. Rilian found herself thinking of molten metal - of the blades Nelaros had forged - of the rivers of lava and the dragon that roared in the deeps. The death-shrouded forest muffled sight and sound - but the taint pulled at her consciousness. Like a black-veined spider's web, she was aware of the teeming creatures that carpeted the south-west plain; insects crawling over dead grey dunes. Gauzy curtains of pink began to roll over the tops of skeletal trees, as though rose champagne were being poured from the east. The rosy sheen gilded the forest, beauty and death close-woven, like the taint in her veins, the wings in her heart.

The column of five-hundred riders became an arrow, slashing through the forest, the brooding silence overwhelmed by the tempo of pounding hooves. The irony of the situation tugged at Rilian's consciousness. Were darkspawn like any other creatures, the forest would be stripped bare: they would have felled trees for firewood and hunted for food. But darkspawn did not eat, did not sleep - did not breed, though they were born from woman - were less alive than the poorest of the Maker's creatures. Yet they spread as virulently as the invisible dirt-creatures Wynne had explained caused sickness. A dark insight glimmered at the edges of her mind, gone before she could grasp it. The horde was gathered upon the open plain, heading with the blind instinct of plague for the largest mass of humanity. The autumn-blasted woods were rank with falling leaves and rotting vegetation - the murky dimness muffled sight and sound. And because they remained unseen, Loghain's plan had a chance.

They headed south, then west, making for the valley north of the Southron Hills, as the sun climbed higher into the sky. The yellowish-green light was curiously thick: like looking up, half-drowned, through water. The Dalish would be following by now, taking up positions south-east of the darkspawn right flank, sheltered by what the nobles fondly termed the forest of South Reach - close to where Rilian had first met Lanaya's clan.

Ser Perth nudged his horse ahead, coming abreast of her. "Just beyond that fir with the lightning-blasted top is the gully. We'll be able to see the Teyrn's signal from there, Warden-Commander."

Even when the approaching battle should be the uppermost - the only - thought in her mind - the title jolted her. It made her look at herself in a different light. Loghain would have told her she looked the part - she could hear his dry, sardonic tones - but she did not feel it. She was stiflingly hot inside the red metal cage. She wore the red-plumed helm, as all Loghain's commanders did - a visible rallying centre, bright and lucid as a point of flame amid the chaos. The unfamiliar weight of the kite shield Loghain had insisted she wear dragged at her left arm. She still wore Adaia's dagger, belted around her waist, but the weapon that had served through countless skirmishes, street fights and tunnel crawls would be no use in pitched battle: would not defend against genlock arrow or hurlock spear, or block a rush to her left side. It was a fine shield - emblazoned with the red-and-green emblem of Redcliffe - but she had no training with it; and lacked the height and strength to position it effectively on foot. Her left hand grasped the reins; her right was curled in a frantic spasm around her sword-hilt. Inside the gauntlets, her palms were slippery with sweat. She was still trying to quell her growing uncertainty when Sten caught up to them. He was riding the largest horse in the Arl's stables - a good sixteen hands high - and he still made it look small. Forcing firmness, uncomfortably dry-mouthed, she asked, "Is everyone sure of their orders? One mistake - just one - and we sleep in the Fade tonight."

Ser Perth said: "Today is not our day to die: your presence ensures that, Warden-Commander."

Rilian winced inwardly.

Sten was primed to fight. Unnaturally bright, widened eyes betrayed his temper even before his gruff answer. "Whatever orders you give, we'll do our job. We'll destroy the darkspawn."

Rilian reached to grip the Qunari's taut right arm. "Your fighting is the one thing I depend on without question, my friend."

The sun was streaking fire along the tops of trees. The rain shimmered like an iridescent curtain: a strange juxtaposition of water and light. It was as if the blaze rose to join with the falling sheets. She found colour in air and rain: it was strangely heavy, like a vast, luminous bruise of glowing purples and reds and golds, all running into each other like paints dissolved in water. The eerie quality of light - the heaviness in the air - reminded Rilian of the voice she had heard in the docks, singing through the storm as she hid from Arl Howe's men. She could hear it in her mind: a vivid sensory memory. The rain seemed to mourn: chilling, a sense of women lamenting. Towards the south, the Blightstorm advanced northward in a vibrating mass. When the black cloud came directly overhead, it would turn the day to night; the rain to treacle.

The knoll rose in the distance, beyond the horde, its stark greyness jutting into the throbbing sky. The three hills looked like decaying molars: she could just make out the insect-sized forms on top. A ripple of activity as they descended. She pictured the army on the march - Loghain keeping the men together - the engineers readying the portable barriers and black powder. Pir Surana's archers were veering westward, holding to the lowest and best cover. She pictured them spreading out at extended intervals upon the ruins of the Imperial Highway - a natural ridge along the darkspawn left flank - imagined she could hear the scrape as they readied their bows.

Her forehead was drenched with sweat. She could not wipe it with the gauntlets that covered her hands like reptilian skin. As if sympathising, Ravenous nudged her, whining softly. "Be ready, my friend," Rilian whispered, scratching behind the alert ears.

Silently, she asked herself what more they could have done to pick the battlefield, what more they could have done to prepare the troops, what equipment they might have developed to help them. Her eyes strained to pierce the distance, to the main bulk of the infantry. There wasn't enough open space here for the horses to bolt, so she could handle it perfectly well. Loghain's experience would be more important at the point of first contact. The flanking archers and rear attack would drive the horde northward like corralling sheep - straight into the encircling arc of Loghain's infantry. The farming metaphor belonged to Loghain: Rilian, who had never seen a sheep save on a platter at Arl Eamon's estate, would have to take his word for it. She'd seen guardsmen drive and pen the crowds during the Alienage summer riots, and guessed that was close enough.

The stream of dun-coloured dots trickled onto the plain like the sands of an hourglass - there was a ripple as they met the swarm of black insects, like two contradictory waves colliding. Rilian jerked upright in the saddle, dry-mouthed. The sunlight had vanished - the approaching cloud turned the air to a shimmering murky curtain - but she was stiflingly hot. She took in greedy gulps of thick, acid-tinged air, yearning to remove her helm. The acrid pre-battle stink of men and horses was familiar - but the Blightstorm created an evil putrescence. It was like inhaling mud.

One of the dun-coloured dots fell - and then another. The plain was carpeted with darkspawn dead - she guessed at least three hundred - but they could afford five times that many. The infantry could spare none.

"Get back," she whispered, not hearing Ravenous' sympathetic growl, "Fall back now, Loghain."

She spat continually despite a raging thirst, trying to get rid of the cold metallic bitterness on her tongue. Her men were dying - her soldiers - who had expected her to save them from the darkspawn. The wait for the signal stretched tautly to infinity. She imagined she could identity individual cries of the wounded, and inside she screamed wordless, soundless rage. She turned to regard her men. Ser Perth's eyes were orbs of raw fear behind the glittering visor. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.

* * *

The murky half-light of the enshrouding forest was threaded with echoes like sly whispers, dissolving like rumours when faced directly. Autumn-blasted leaves clung to trees like rags around corpses, waiting for winter to strip the bones. Terribly, incongruously, Shianni remembered her cousin: soft green wedding dress tattered and blood-drenched, falling around bone-hard limbs that dodged and struck like the armaments of some lethal machine. It was a strange, mist-woven landscape, and Shianni found herself remembering Hahren Valendrian's stories: of woods where the Veil was thin, and spirits wandered between the mortal world and the Fade; enchanted realms from which a traveller might return to find a hundred years had passed, everyone he knew crumbled to dust.

Tiny fronds of sunlight formed a dappled counterpoint to the latticework of branches. The rain and strange greasiness in the air gave the light an oily richness; she thought of lemon juice drizzled onto a plate of chicken bones. She shook her head at her own foolishness: there was no sense in thinking of food now! This morning, when Cyrion had offered her the hot mixed grain mash that was both tasty and filling, she had pushed the plate away. Despite her hatred of waste - despite a lifetime's conditioning to treasure every scant mouthful - she had been unable to eat a bite.

Shianni's Dalish armour - leather, painted with stripes and shading to blend chameleon-like with their surroundings - encased her like a cold, bulky, alien frog. The weight of her bow was awkward - the buckets she carried back home were heavier, but the balance familiar. She could barely see the warriors in front: they were forest ghosts. With each step they seemed to grow beyond boundaries, become spirit-like. She felt both flat-footed and flat-eared - and winced as she underscored the thought by tripping noisily on a branch. Merrill and Velanna walked beside her. Their robes also matched the forest: graceful candleflame forms who carried staves that bled a low, oppressive thrum of power like the air before a storm. Cale had told her to remain in the rear with the two Keepers: she had objected, knowing she had no spells to complement them: that it was for her own protection, nothing more. With battle less than an hour away, the fierce fires of determination had shrivelled to a cold lump of ash in her belly.

The archers headed southward, until they reached the ash-grey arc of the Drakon River. Then they fanned out, the front line sheltered at the very edge of the forest, at regular intervals all along the darkspawn right flank. They waited for the signal: the shemlen General would have his mage send up a shower of sparks, high above the treeline. Along the line, the warriors communicated with handsignals - an intricate language Shianni had just begun to learn. A muted buzz rippled along the line as the information passed from one Elf to the next. Bows were nocked and drawn. It was an eerie, almost soundless enthusiasm: they knew surprise was their best weapon, and only silence could protect it. Shianni strained to pierce the eerie, liquid shadows: the world under dim grey water, or seen through a dark pane. She tried to imagine the darkspawn army: roiling northward like the oily tides at the harbour, glistening with shemlen filth. The air stretched thinly - Shianni felt her nerves drawn taut as Rilian's lute strings, her fear shrilling to a thin high wail.

Then a blaze exploded above the canopy: a fire-shower of light that rained through the piebald reddish-brown patchwork, threadbare as a tattered quilt. Shianni could see little beyond the trees ahead and the backs of the archers in front - the open ground showed as a glimmer of light seen through a long spyglass - but she heard the swarm of loosed arrows. An undulating, confused murmur, carrying a shiver of violence. A cacophony of crashes up ahead - a roar, a squeal, pounding footsteps. The vibrations snaked towards her. Crashes - a juddering of leaves - dark shapes fleeing, familiar features eroded to shapes of horror. The archers melted into cover, weapons unsuited for close combat. Shianni's bow nearly slid through sweat-sodden hands: she froze, mind white and empty, instinct screaming flight.

Beside her, Merrill and Velanna stood their ground. Shianni gasped at the sight of Merrill. The familiar gawky figure - so slight she seemed much younger than her years - was encased in armour of living rock! She might have been one of the golems in Rilian's stories, and moved with the bulky, ponderous purpose of a shem knight. A familiar face - a tentative friend - morphed with dreamlike horror into a stranger. Merrill pounded the hilt of her staff into the earth: a white coruscation budded and bloomed; turned the rain to silver tapestries. Droplets hovered in tiny, perfect spheres, holding the pearly luminescence of marbles. The swirl of energy gathered, coalesced: spears of lightning split the murky air like knives through rags. Ahead, the looming misshapen hulks howled in hideous pain: the stench of burning, diseased flesh made her gag. Merrill aimed her staff like a molten spear: unerring flames roiled among the stricken creatures. The colliding currents of light turned the storm-lashed forest to a kaleidoscope of silver and scarlet. Shianni struggled to make sense of a world dissolved in delirium. It was like trying to build a stained-glass window with coloured water.

Amid the flickering cornucopia of sound and light, Velanna stood like a force growing from the earth. Her wraith-slender arms were raised to the sky like the spikes of a thorntree. As the first of the darkspawn stumbled through the sea of flame and lightning - Shianni's inchoate impressions were of flayed mockeries of men - she had an intimation of a magic darker and more potent than Merrill's. White attenuated fingers jabbed like points of vengeance. The soil around the darkspawn began to crack and crumble, split by a writhing nest of roots. The bone-hard tentacular birth split darkspawn armour: turned the taint-ravaged creatures to a shrieking, heaving mound of tortured flesh. The screams were unearthly: bestial howls that threatened to split her skull, and emptied her mind of anything but anguish. The living mesh of thorns splintered flesh and bone to bloody rags. Roots rose where the taint ought to have killed them, rearing like obscene fingers as if in echo of their flesh-and-blood sister. They writhed back underground, only to explode elsewhere, pulping another mass of darkspawn to glistening black ruin. Revulsion shook Shianni like the tremors of the Tevinter plague. In the Alienage the roots of the Vhenadahl birthed the branches that sheltered them - tied them to the past and anchored the future. There was something horrible about seeing them used this way: harnessed by raw power to breed death, not life. Velanna's teeth showed, white and malign, between her lips; arrogance stretched all emotion from her features. She looked like a malevolent albino cat.

A darkspawn stumbled through the twin storms of nature and light. Shianni's mind balked, fragmented: she saw it as a series of separate images, looming larger and larger in her vision. Ridiculously, she thought of a story Rilian had once told her -about a shem nobleman whose dark deeds showed only in his portrait. Terror rooted her to the spot. Her fevered impressions showed a hideous vitiation of humanity: muscles jutting starkly beneath grey, diseased skin, scored by thick, ropy scars and bulging tumours, encased in armour that seemed to be corroding from within. At first glance, it appeared to be grinning. But that was not a smile: its lips, like its nose, were eaten away. Inured to the agony of its bodily corruption, it came on steadily, the broken spike of a thornroot jutting from its shoulder. It was joined by another: a shorter, squarer creature, squirming and slinking low-bodied behind. Shianni's fear left her in a rush, leaving her numb and empty as a glass in winter sunlight. She lifted her bow: felt its weight settle like a familiar burden, flesh and wood drawn taut in a strange duet. The soft middle finger of her right hand was scored by training cuts, but the sharp sting seemed to float around her, disconnected. Cale had only just begun teaching her to use the larger bow - but at this range she couldn't miss.

The darkspawn came on howling: black eyed skull faced bloody-mouthed fiends.

They died like men.

* * *

The moss-covered white stone of the Imperial Highway was half-crumbled into the plain. At regular intervals, observation posts jutted like molars. Zevran followed Pir Surana's Night Elves, the Antivan assassin having no trouble following the loping gait. Pir Surana was small even for an Elven man, but his scarred, shaven head, viper-sharp face and predator's eyes gave lie to first impressions. He had a granite-hard presence of purpose, and all the Elves who had fought beside Loghain during the Orlesian occupation followed him without question. His quiet second-in-command was a study in contrasts: though nearly a head taller than the Elf, Bann Nathaniel Howe seemed to float alongside him with a curious loose limbed grace. Under the eerie, luminescent sky the road itself formed a pearly, gleaming arc: a long blade above the roiling, glistening sea of darkspawn below. Once, the monument to ancient Tevintan grandeur had stretched between Ostagar and Aeonar. Only fragments remained. They had scaled this one under cover of Lothering forest - now they headed north along the pale, shining ribbon. Amid the strange, green-and-white patchwork of shadows, angled stone and long-forgotten statues, the archers took up position at regular intervals. Zevran drew the shadows about him with the instinct of a hunter. His devouring jewel eyes were disinterested as glass, lit by compressed energy void of feeling. Beside him, he was aware of Leliana's shiver of tension, taut as a drawn bow. Her exhaling hiss was no heavier than the whir of a mosquito. It was charged with a yearning excitement that underscored Zevran's own dark-shrouded sigh.

Bows were nocked and drawn - a forest of arrowtips that bristled all along the white road, malevolent as the fangs of snakes.

"Ready...aim...loose!" Pir Surana barked the order. The bone-sharp gauntness of his face - pale as a bleached insect - was set into unyielding planes. Near-colourless eyes seemed to reflect the hues around him, holding less emotion than diamond chips. A thrum of sound - like the low drone of a flight of wasps - and the spiky, steel-tipped rain fell upon the heaving, grunting mass below. A crash - a juddering roar - and suddenly the tides of darkspawn parted as if in fear. A pale-grey, horned monolith in feculent rags crashed through, towering above the rest like rocks above ocean. Eerily, for such a large creature, it advanced in stark silence. One bulbous, misshapen hand, skin beginning to slough off around jagged bone, reached toward the rubble.

"Bring it down!" Surana's hoarse command carried a strained urgency. For Zevran, the world unfolded in brilliant clarity. Its sensual bloom of glory was padding around a steel mesh: the patterns of strike and defence, of razored attention to detail, that kept him alive. One side of Zevran was hotblooded: a hunter who lived for the kill as much as by it. The other side was a killer too, but cold and logical. The reptile part of his brain dispassionately calculated odds. Aware that he had twice the creature's speed - that his bow would pierce even ogre hide at this range - Zevran drew back, relaxed as a willow branch, and loosed. The needle sharp projectile pierced the dark, lost hole of one gaping eye.

The ogre didn't even blink with the other. It advanced with the slow inevitability of landslide, hand reaching downwards, grasping, finding purchase, rearing back like a pendulum.

The entire section of rock shuddered at the impact. Only Zevran's quick reflexes saved him - he stared, in blank astonishment, at the shattered red smear where one of the Elves had been. Three more were ripped by sheared off shards. Ragged, spinning like leaves, they fell backward into the maelstrom below. A few more hits, and the ogre had cleared a path of rubble for its kin: they came scrabbling up the slope: a squirming, flesh-crawling mass of giant, greyish-skinned insects. Zevran raised an eyebrow. Not for the first time, he wondered at his choice of companions. Granted, he'd had little choice when he pledged himself to Rilian's service - but he'd had plenty of opportunity to leave. He'd take the Crows over darkspawn any day. Leliana - the romantic - believed the Elven woman reminded him of someone: but Rilian was nothing like Rinna. Rinna had been sensual, velvet-eyed, wicked, a shadow against dark, perfumed Antivan nights: not a frighteningly impractical idealist who rallied troops in flaming armour and possessed the grace and stealth of a peacock. He shrugged inwardly: the approaching darkspawn were not interested in the answer. Instead, he gave them the steel spikes of his arrows. Beside him, Leliana was a machine: sighting, loosing, killing. Zevran, as keen at reading people as he was at deflecting their blades, saw past the unknowable person sowing destruction, sensed the complex of hurts that drove her.

In the erratic mist-veiled shadows, Morrigan was demonic: hurling spells in a fire-shower of ruin. Silk and feathers fluttered like cobwebs around her white, gracile form - she seemed to float among the motes of spelllight, oddly attenuated, as though the air were water. She cradled - tenderly as a child - a shimmering orb of liquid ice - the unerring projectile coated the darkspawn. Splinters of ice held them in place, like jagged crystalline flowers. Tiny flickers of electrical energy blossomed and faded like seeds of lightning. A cobalt-blue arc shattered the brittle creatures into shards. Those following simply scrambled atop the bodies - closing before the witch could cast again. Morrigan raised her arms to the sky in feral triumph: gossamer rags billowed like sails; covered her body like a shroud. A strange crawling ripple writhed beneath. The cloth leeched inward around a suddenly empty husk. Where the witch had been was now a writhing black cloud. The cloud split open like the carapace of a beetle - exploding into a swarm of insects - wisps of clothing falling to the ground like corpserags. Beyond the unsettling intimation of decay, Zevran had only one thought: he'd always appreciated the outfit that displayed the witch's ample charms - Wynne was not the only one with a magical bosom - he realised now that the strategic array of beads and feathers held a practical purpose too. Far harder to shapeshift in and out of something solid.

The darkspawn stumbled into the amorphous cloud in fury and puzzlement. Zevran drew the light, razor-edged, Antivan longsword and dagger - bent low in a feral crouch, ready to spring. Softly - so softly it seemed an echo of the rain-shadows and the oily light- a low croon wound through the air. He stared in disbelief - Leliana was singing. Singing! Before he could ask what she was doing he saw to his amazement that all the nearest creatures were held in thrall - the low, insidious notes a siren song that competed with the Call. Rilian - when she had had too much to drink - had once confided that Leliana's voice was the only thing that drove away the dark dirge that flickered at the edges of her mind. The darkspawn were held in place - as if caught in the slipstream of two colliding currents. They hovered in a strange stillness of time and blankness of mind, as if neither movement nor will were possible. Zevran padded quietly behind them. The long Antivan dagger glimmered like a dragon's tooth. Knowing the corrosive dangers of darkspawn blood, he silently blessed the gloves that were the Warden's gift. Light as silk and tougher than bullhide, the Dalish leather was treated with the same waterproof wax as the aravel sails. Like a snake, his left arm curved behind the first mottled, hairless skull. A well-practiced reflex opened the throat.

Zevran had seen many dead faces in his lifetime, parading in a ghostly procession behind his eyes. Of all of them - both human and monster - the look in these dead grey orbs was the most peaceful.


	14. Chapter 14: Pale Battalions

_When you see millions of the mouthless dead_

_Across your dreams in pale battalions go_

Charles Sorley

From his position on the hillside, Jowan watched the infantry descend in long, winding, dun-coloured trickles, like the capillaries of some vast, spreading tree - or veins. He swallowed hard, not wanting to think of anything blood-related. It was not the low, constant thrum of yearning that bothered him - it was the vision of himself sprawled in a disjointed heap. His stomach was slashed - a gaped mouth. Jowan unconsciously turned his head. Blinking, he cleared the image. Fear crept insidiously along nerve-paths; sang in the channels of his spine. He cleared his throat. A snuffling noise like a sob emerged. He tried to focus on the army below - so many ranks between that and him - watched the dun-coloured mass divide itself into ranks and squares - motions as unknowable to him as some complex Dwarven machine.

The mounted escort - a young soldier whose tunic bore the wyvern crest of Gwaren - kept one hand on the reins of Ser Otto's steed and called on them to start down the trail. Then Jowan's real nightmare began. Jouncing miserably, his horse's hooves slithering through mud like pigs in slop, he forgot to be afraid. Balance required total concentration. Muddy brown eyes fixed morosely upon the back of his Templar companion. Although reliant on the escort for guidance, Ser Otto kept his balance as easily as if he'd been born with a horse between his legs. As always, Jowan was somehow unable to see the burned, hairless scalp - the scars that were waxen patches interspersed with striations of shiny white silk - the unsettling eyes, blank and grey as though filmy strands of gossamer-fine web had been woven across them. If he had, he might have liked his keeper better - for Jowan felt the suffering of others keenly. But the serenity, the steadfast singleness of purpose, called to mind a blond, blue-eyed paragon - a stained glass window - and that annoyed him intensely. Ser Otto was the son of a knight - sent to the Chantry as so many younger sons were - and although he had described his former home as little more than a glorified farmstead, it confirmed Jowan's opinion of over-privileged, bone-headed bucket-helms. Lord Valiant and Lady Virtue, most happily married in the Castle of Chivalry... _Get that demon-spawn out of my sight! _Jowan felt the sting of the strap - smelled the mingled odours of stale sweat and leather and ale that permeated his parents' cottage - and reflected on injustice: a favourite topic.

Memory dissolved into the present sights and sounds: the rain-soaked leather of the reins - the acrid steam coming off his horse's flanks: faint, wispy tendrils no bigger than half-moon nails, curling like ghosts of lace - the foul water that pooled darkly like blood in the mass of craters and furrows churned up by myriad boots. The staccato rhythm of rain on Templar armour: droplets like tiny baubles on the purple sash, little glittering blisters on the mirror-bright plate. Descending to a ledge on the hillside, a merciful fringe of trees screened the battlefield ahead. The light, filtered through spikes of firs, undulated and gleamed like a green sea.

Jowan was shocked out of introspection by an agonized scream. The sharpness of it seemed to actually lighten the forest gloom. Roaring commands and shouts of men in combat struck next. Jowan was astounded to see that Ser Otto appeared more anguished than apprehensive. He had to reason it out: the knight heard his fellow Templars engaged, and was unable to help. Jowan suffered no such delusions. He wished with all his heart they could turn and flee.

Three short and two long trumpet blasts shook the air like a banner. A crash and rumble ahead. Ser Otto kneed his horse ahead, but the escort caught the reins. "Not yet, ser. We wait for the Teyrn's signal."

The first of the causalities staggered towards them. Jowan's breath caught at the sight of the pair careering from tree to tree. One clutched at his right arm. Blood pumped from his bicep. The second man supported his friend. The broken shaft of a spear, its jagged remnant corroded with a ghastly mixture of red and black blood, extruded from his shoulder. He barely looked up as he passed. He was humming to himself: Jowan heard the faint, tortured notes of some strange music.

The trumpet blared again: two sharp staccato notes.

"Now!" The escort jerked the reins, and Jowan found himself following the soldier and Templar through the thick curtain of trees. It ended on a wide, grassy ridge, several metres above the plain below. "Wait here for the Teyrn's orders." The escort dug his heels into his horse's sides and galloped forward along the grassy arc, towards the battle.

Jowan looked down upon an uncounted multitude: tens of thousands of shrieking, damned creatures that undulated, flowed, crawled towards him. The dun-coloured arc was a beachhead swallowed by an ocean of horror. It was too much, too vast - he had a sense of demand from the expressionless void: vertigo threatened to pitch him forward. The empty, uncaring sky shimmered with oily needles of rain: spear-sharp, tiny white points of light. Beyond the storm of steel, an amorphous cloud drifted forward, an encroaching arc like the lunar eclipse he and Lily had once watched from the top floor of the Tower, ready to cover everything like a shroud. His mind roiled with inchoate images of brute violence. Only an empty stomach prevented him heaving himself dry. He retched; clapped a hand to his mouth. The sound emerged as a soft groan.

"Stay calm," came the clipped, soldierly voice, not unkindly.

"_Stay calm_?" Jowan's voice pitched higher on the second syllable, as raw as if he'd been weeping for days, hysteria tickling the edges of his mind. "Easy for you to say - you can't see what's out there!"

There was a long moment of silence. Then his companion gave a faint cough, a strangled snort, and looked away as if struggling for composure. Even in his terror, Jowan's natural compassion pricked his conscience: he hadn't meant to wound the knight. He had blurted out the words before he thought: but hadn't Lily said once that you should never comment on a person's family or disability? He looked tentatively toward him, the faint, soft flow of regret causing terror to ebb just slightly. Ser Otto's face was averted; his shoulders twitching. Maker - was he _crying_?

Jowan edged forward - then stopped. A roiling wave of fury hit him low in the gut. The Templar bastard was _laughing_; making valiant efforts to stifle it.

"It's - not- funny!" he grated out, so angry he could hardly speak, "How can you _laugh _at a time like this?"

"I do apologize - it is unseemly." The shamefaced look was ruined by the hitch of smothered laughter. Amusement rippled across the disfigured face the way wind ripples wheat: sunlit echoes warring with sombre duty. Jowan saw the carefree young nobleman he had been. "It's just - if I'm ever inclined to mourn my injury, I need only remember your unique brand of positive thinking. As you so rightly point out: there is a silver lining to every cloud..." He stifled laughter again, but one little snort broke through.

"You Templar bastard! You maggot! People are dying out there - we're going to be next!"

A faint shadow crossed the Templar's face as he went silent, listened to the moans and cries of his fellows.

"Perhaps," he said, more seriously this time, but with a note of humour nonetheless, "You should not leave me in blissful ignorance. Tell me what you see."

Jowan looked disbelievingly at the knight: saw that he was serious. There was an edge of underlying need beneath the question. He flinched; forced himself to look once more at the vast charnel pit that opened below. "Damned well I will then," he snarled, yearning to siphon off some of the horror into his companion. "I see..." Jowan struggled for words to convey the sight, mind empty of everything but horror, "I see...a vast, Maker-damned darkspawn horde!"

There was a slightly strained note of patience in Ser Otto's voice when he prompted, "Yes: the Warden's reports said they numbered twenty-thousand. What of our own troop movements? Where do the pikemen stand? The archers? The infantry? What positions? Are they holding ground, or retreating? How? In disorder?"

"What do you mean: in disorder? Everything's in disorder!"

"Do they carry their shields? Do they remain in units? Is the withdrawal staggered? Do they form an overall arc from the Imperial Highway to the Drakon River?"

Jowan stared - blinked - face screwed up in concentration, trying consciously to see the roiling unknowable mass as Ser Otto would; impose order like a costume upon chaos. Pikemen? He squinted through the swirling cloud of dust, rain and blood. One set of dun-coloured smears looked much like another...wait, those had longer weapons: a shining, bristling mass held before them like the spines of hedgehogs.

"I see the Teyrn's pikemen - to our right: between us and those ruins...wait! There are archers all along there..."

Ser Otto nodded, as if Jowan had just confirmed something. Thoughtfully, as if to himself, he murmured, "The King's Highway, the Warden's cavalry and the Dalish archers form one jaw of the trap; the infantry and wall of pikes the other. But a tactical withdrawal takes great leadership. What is the Teyrn's position?"

Jowan stared, squinted, struggled – fought to see the world through the soldier's eyes as he would have wrestled with a foreign language. It was the way they played chess: his words translated the board and Ser Otto reflected it back in new patterns. The heaving random lines and squares joined like the pieces of a puzzle; nameless, formless fear receded. His white, shaking hands, clenched around the reins, relaxed in slow increments. His gaze sharpened like a seeking hawk; he saw the Teyrn on horseback, Orlesian plate reflecting a dark radiance of colours, riding from unit to unit. Understanding burst in him like a flame.

"I see him!" he cried excitedly, "He's directing the retreat just where it should go!"

Sensitive to the moods around him, Jowan was aware of Ser Otto's approval, the faint quirk of an appreciative smile.

"Indeed. I heard the men and women of Maric's Shield grumbling because the Teyrn split them up: each soldier to command a squad of ten. They're used to fighting together, as at Ostagar. It's better for morale. But a strategy like this demands discipline, communication."

The shrilling cacophony below made a kind of sense: buglers passing messages from squad leaders to red-plumed captains to the Teyrn himself; a constant two-way flow, rippling up and down the chain of command. A sudden realisation struck him and he jerked upright in the saddle, boiling with indignation. "Hey – your Templars are positioned well back: they're mounted iron golems and they're letting the little guys do all the work!"

Ser Otto remained unperturbed. "They're following the Teyrn's orders," he said placidly, "The infantry are the bait. When the darkspawn are lured to the deadfall, they'll be rallying points: armoured fists the infantry will follow."

"Humph," Jowan stared balefully at the glittering mass of heavily caparisoned horses and iron monoliths with sun-shields. For him, the sight carried sickly undertones of Exalted Marches – the terror of mages and Elves – the greasy dampness of hopeless flight…

"We train as the Orlesian chevaliers do," Ser Otto was saying, "heavily-armoured – less manoeuvrable than the lighter Ferelden cavalry: a fist rather than a fleet spike."

"And you claim you're just mage-watchdogs," Jowan muttered in disgust, "Make no mistake – you're an army."

Ser Otto bristled – but was there a faint glimmer of uncertainty about the young, stoic face? "Purely defensive: we protect the Chantry."

Sensing a weakness, Jowan needled further: "Against people who have no intention of being converted?" His pleasure was cut short at the sudden ripple of movement at the far right edge of his vision. He stared, breath catching in his throat, at a sight that flickered like dark flames. The whispers of the Fade monster he heard in his dreams, through his veins, in his quietest moments, rose to a scream: promises of rescue, of salvation. Almost sobbing, he wrenched his mind away. His terror was elemental and had the power to annihilate him. He squinted into the distance; fought to focus on the danger he could at least see coming. One shadow...two...three...four - heading with their strange loping gait up the ridge.

"Ser!" It came out a strangled croak; he tried again, "There are four of those...things...heading straight for us! How could they have passed the pikemen? How could they know what we..."

Inhumanly calm, Ser Otto turned sightless eyes to his. "What distance?"

Jowan stared, squinted. The blurred rainwashed vista played strange tricks. Even after six months of freedom, his judgement was uncertain on anything over the distances of the Tower. Corridors that were concentric rings of stones, dorms and classrooms packed with apprentices like sheep in a pen. The longest distances had been upward: row upon row of tomes untouched for centuries; high slits of windows, air currents choked by dust and candle-smoke. Shuffling feet and whispers, like the rustle of dead leaves. The glittering panoply of the outside world was strange - fast-moving objects seemed to leap out at him; peculiarly raw and naked, unexplained.

He tried his best. "Fifty yards - no, twenty! - they're moving very fast. They're built like dwarves...wait, one of them has a staff!"

Ser Otto nodded, and then - to Jowan's horror - jabbed his spurs into his horse's sides and started forward. The knight had followed the Warden's advice about horses and darkspawn - accustoming his mount to the scent of their blood - and the quality of horse and rider did the rest. As soon as the sickly, fetid stink shifted closer - iron mixed with disease and a faint medicinal scent that reminded him of the phylactery chamber - Jowan's own mount shied and reared. A moment of uncontrollable imbalance - a sickening impact - and he was on the ground, sparks whirling round his head like white birds pecking, each with a jab of pain. His body exploded into a tornado of screaming bruises - sheer terror brought him to his knees.

"What are you doing!" he shouted furiously, "You can't see them!"

"You can!" came the steady baritone, lit with what sounded infuriatingly like excitement, "Cast around me!"

Cursing, groaning, wheezing tortuously, Jowan dragged himself to his feet, aiming his staff like a spear. He stared at the broad shiny back - Ser Otto like an iron figurehead atop a brown, rolling cargo ship, wielding his mace in alternating arcs, like oars - and thought to himself that serving as a human shield was the best use of Templars he'd ever seen... The nearest darkspawn went down under rending hooves, battered into tattered black ruin. A chance blow from the mace disoriented the next - but not before the creature had sunk filthy nails into the horse's heaving flank, drawing a long gash. A shrill whinny - Ser Otto's roar of fury - and the pointed sabaton pulped the hideous howling face into a mass of wet black ribbons.

The darkspawn mage - the emissary, the Warden had called them - was waving its hands like carrion birds. Decaying cloth shivered and fluttered like a swarm of bats. Hoarse, guttural sounds bubbled out of its mouth: nonwords that reeked of death and hatred, of confused, hopeless pain. They were sounds that could have come from the boy in Arl Howe's dungeon: terrible sounds that echoed down the pathways of Jowan's mind. Except that these built power: a seething tide of untamed magic. Sensing it, the Templar began a chant of his own.

The fourth darkspawn headed straight for Jowan.

On instinct - terror superseding fear of punishment - Jowan reached for the familiar red tapestries - sent the seeking strands of his will down into the complex network that powered the shrieking, damned creature. He sought the shimmering, living threads of _likeness_ that would allow him to connect: hijack the waters of an alien ship and take over its helm.

He found a blank wall. Blood that may as well have been mud, or the wax of incipient decay. Dead sludge, dying and rotting even as the creature was virulently, horrifyingly alive - as alive as the invisible creatures that had fed on the infected wounds of Arl Howe's prisoners.

Sheer, blank shock rooted Jowan to the spot. The rebuff of his magic was as physically painful as a punch into iron. Terror splintered his mind. That pitted, corroded axe, edge poisoned with the creature's own blood, took on a malign life of its own, like the notched head of a snake.

With a hoarse shriek of terror, Jowan reached inside and found an inchoate storm, its changing many-coloured forms bleeding into the void. Emptiness, darkness, yearning. The amorphous chaos leeched out into his surroundings. The creature swayed...swayed...

A faint crackle of positive energy - a resonance - a blue hammer blow.

"No don't!" Jowan shrieked. The Templar's building power vanished in an azure cloud - the crack of the darkspawn's magic hit him square in the chest. The young features went slack, then bunched in pain. The impact threw him backwards, off the horse, dropped him face-down. Reflexes born of unstinting training made him roll - fingers still clenched tightly around the handle of the mace. The horse charged down the ridge, long scratches searing trembling flanks, as though it could outrun pain and sickness.

Jowan's darkspawn dropped to the ground, strange, mewling noises pouring from its throat, as though it were in pain. Jowan's spell had trapped the creature in the Fade, and darkspawn did not dream. In the Fade, they could not hear the Call. Jowan's gaze snapped up, to the emissary - standing over the knight. Before he had time to question himself - talk himself into being frightened - Jowan aimed his staff like a pointing, angry finger. Effortlessly - the magic belonging to the Birchcore rather than springing up fountain-like within - he sent blossoming sparks of flame into the emissary like petals of living crystal. The darkspawn howled in pain, its mouth a gaping, shapeless hole. Jowan felt the air turn thicker - so full of crawling taint he might have been breathing oil. The cloud of magic expanded like a stain, a cancer, filling the air with the stench of sickness. Jowan's bowels turned to water - he froze in place, every nerve drawn taut in a long shrill scream. He had no magic to protect himself; could only dodge - or run.

Ser Otto's booted foot struck out - connected with the one place even a darkspawn could not ignore. An animal howl rent the air; a scissors chop of Ser Otto's legs took its feet from under it. The Templar rolled - by sheer luck in the right direction. The darkspawn landed with a wet thud beside him - not on top. Ser Otto gained his knees: several heavy swings of the mace were enough to finish the creature.

Jowan started forward, mud-drenched trousers slopping about trembling knees. He slid in mud - waterlogged furrows that sucked at his feet with a sound like slurping. Ser Otto was on his knees, head cocked, reaching out with hearing and senses for the presence of other darkspawn. He too was covered in mud from head to toe. The arcane bolt had cracked his breastplate: a lightning-shaped fissure decorated his right side. Face screwed up. Eyes shut. Gasping for breath.

"Ser - are you..."

"It's nothing...I can tell." Every word sounded as though the knight were being stabbed. "Broke a rib...maybe two; they'll heal. No taint...no - infection..." Jowan grabbed an elbow, took as much of the armoured weight as he could, as Ser Otto struggled to his feet. He winced, despite himself, unable to forget that it had been he who had spoiled the knight's Cleansing Aura.

"I'm sorry," he muttered, "I shouldn't have..."

Ser Otto dismissed the apology with a small shake of his head. "I should have...planned for that. You can't...foul your partner's shield...in battle." A small smile quirked his lips. "I'm used to...fighting mages. Not...alongside them." He stopped as Jowan, still supporting him, dared a peek downward at the roiling chaos below. An odd hesitation came over his face - as if debating how much to divulge. Finally, he added, "Besides...that magic...wasn't normal. No mana...some form of Blood Magic...but different. Taint...not blood. Templar powers...might not have worked anyway."

"Neither did..." Jowan blurted - and could have bitten off his tongue.

The scarred forehead crinkled as the hairless brows rose in enquiry. Once again, Jowan saw the real face: the sunlit ease that was not like the arrogance of anyone else he knew.

"Oh?"

"I mean - Blood Magic might not have worked either. Just as well I didn't use it." Seeing Ser Otto's dubious expression, Jowan thought rapidly. Lying to the Templar was at once easier and harder than usual: he didn't have to worry about eye contact or facial expression, but he knew the knight would pick up on the slightest nuances of voice. Indignation came to his rescue - he did not have to fake the aggrieved tone when he pointed out: "I used a sleep spell and my staff. I would have thought - seeing as I saved your life with them - you'd be more appreciative."

Could it be - was Ser Otto actually smiling? A ripple of quicksilver amusement danced beneath the solemnity when he said: "Indeed. Your entropic spells were most effective. Perhaps next time you'll think of them first."

Zzz...zzz...zzz. The words blended into unidentified buzzing. Jowan was suddenly dizzy with relief and the aftereffects of adrenaline. Nice footwork, he congratulated himself. Very nimble. A smug grin spread over his face as he contemplated having fooled the knight. Looking around at their handiwork, he wanted to jump up and down. His blood seemed to fizz through his body. Four darkspawn! Between them, they'd killed four darkspawn!

A giddy smirk stretched his muscles from ear to ear. Despite the roars and shrieks that rose from the field below, he felt cheerful enough to return to his favourite pastime. "Does this mean that Templar powers don't work on Blood Mages either?" he prodded, "Is that why the Chantry gets its robes in a knot?"

Ser Otto kept a deadpan expression as he used his purple, richly embroidered sash to wipe the mud from his face, refusing to confirm or deny it. "Just remember - fists do."

Jowan scowled. His battered lip still burned and throbbed. Any sympathy he felt for his injured companion was rapidly drying to a thimbleful.

A rumble of hooves sounded like drumbeats. Jowan peered downward - saw the distinctive Orlesian plate - the red-plumed helm - the wyvern standard. The Teyrn guided his horse up the ridge, pausing to survey the reeking bodies of the darkspawn, the scrawny mage and blind Templar standing calmly in the midst. The hawk's face was pale with weariness; the steely eyes smudged with purple shadows. The ashen curve of a smile brushed his lips.

"Looks like you two have the situation well in hand."

"Ser." The Templar stiffened, parade-ground straight, and saluted. Jowan managed a sickly imitation. He wondered if the Teyrn were thinking of the last, terribly botched, mission he'd had for him. Now that the Teyrn and Arl Eamon were allies, might he not want such a reminder to simply - disappear... But from the looks of things, the man had larger problems. Like an eagle, he surveyed the overview of the battle.

"Ready your spells, mage. Prepare to give the signal on my command."

Time stretched tautly. Beads of sweat crawled down Jowan's spine like tiny spiders. Peering downward, he saw the mass of infantry stretched in a long curve, from the ranks of pikemen to the grey smear of the river. The rear ranks were almost touching the waiting Templar units. When the Teyrn barked: "Now!" he raised the Birchcore staff to the sky. One of the first magical commands he'd ever learned sent a shower of red-gold sparks spiralling upwards. The sudden release of tension left him wrung-out as a wet dishcloth. He saw the Teyrn in profile, studying the battlefield as Jowan might have studied a chessboard. That beak of a nose and intense, seeking eyes made him look more like a bird of prey than ever. His thin smile of satisfaction held the gleam of a knife.

"Now – you two are to report to the hospital tent."

Ser Otto's young, scarred face was dismayed, chagrined. The broad, stiffly rigid shoulders slumped slightly.

"No, your grace...you'll deplete...our defence."

The Teyrn's reply was brisk, but not unkind. "Do not concern yourself, ser knight. The enemy is in the mouth of the trap. A few more moments should do it."

Jowan saw the struggle: discipline warring with regret. At last, rather stiffly, the Templar nodded.

Lips pursed judiciously, Jowan was careful to infer that he, too, was grudgingly following orders. If he seemed too eager for deliverance, the Teyrn would probably change his mind - invent some horrible task for him. He thought he saw the trace of a knowing smile pass across the bone-weary face, that usually looked as though a smile might crack it. He decided he must be imagining things.

Given the choice between darkspawn and Wynne the Wise, Jowan decided, he'd take Wynne.

* * *

The redbeam of light split the roiling sky like a blade across bruised flesh, parting it like wet wool.

Unbearable relief burst in Rilian; the tense aching agony of waiting finally over.

Staring out at the heaving mass visible from the narrow gully - the ground higher here, and higher again on Loghain's side - she understood that the Teyrn had timed it perfectly. Along the dark smudge of the forest of South Reach, a ripple shook the glistening line: gaps and patches appeared like a frayed, tattered ribbon. Organically, the mass pulled back, closed in on itself: seething chaos as they collided with the howling exodus north, like two opposing eddies of water, and were pulled toward the undertow as the Dalish rolled up the darkspawn right flank.

The shock travelled south as well as north: the wall of darkspawn ahead was now in flux: gaps appeared in the bruise-dark mass - shadowy craters that seemed to welcome the spike of their charge - a needle lancing a wound. Astride Racer's glistening black back, the mass of muscle buoying up frail flesh encased in too-heavy armour; the shield she could not use - Rilian turned to give the order. In the same thought-instant, a terrible alternative - a mocking ghost of possibility - swam before her eyes. For a moment, she saw the world in double-vision. Suppose the signal had been late - the vista one of hopeless odds: a writhing, dark-crawling mass poised like a wall of black oil, about to annihilate Loghain's men. A series of unbearable images unfolded with pellucid clarity: the stark choice - the absolute necessity of retreat, preserving the only force standing between Ferelden and annihilation - the cries of inhuman agony, the shouts and curses and prayers… The nightmare dissolved like wisps of smoke: pale mournful fingers that brushed her mind then bled into reality, leaving nothing but a shudder and a cold sweat. That had never been _her _nightmare: she had seen it from an ivory tower, been rescued like a storybook hero; had never had to make that choice... Her left hand, looped about the reins, stroked the warm, silky mane - the immense bulk and power like a banked furnace beneath her - her right rested on Ravenous' square slab of a head. He whined appreciatively. Anchored and centered, the nameless horror shivered down to distant, hard calm. Transient thoughts flickered and buzzed: would she fail before she ever reached the Archdemon? Fall from the saddle and start eating dirt? Run away, shaking and crying? Perversely, the thoughts calmed her: those things weren't in her. Combat seemed to be the only place where fear and confusion didn't follow.

Poised on the brink of intense and deadly action, everything she saw came to her with clear and exquisite detail: the earnest, heavy drops of rain that ran off Ser Perth's armour in tiny, jagged streams - emerald and ruby upon the colours of Redcliffe, clear as crystal across his sword. The myriad pairs of eyes - pale and dark, muddy and clear - that clung to her like drowning men beneath the fake ferocity of their helms. She hung on the edge of herself: in another moment she would be gone, becoming nothing more than a set of instincts, freed from memory, from doubt, from fear. Her words were the feast of starvelings: bright, transient promises and the melancholy exaltation of a life that counts its seconds. Something in her mood carried over, pulled them with her - she had always had that power. The world shifted beneath her; she felt suddenly strange, as though all the strength were draining from her body. They were pulling it out of her, demanding it. She gave it gladly: all the strength she had in her, and then some. She didn't care that the speech itself was gloriously romantic - her real faith was in Loghain. Her own legend was a beautiful lie - but it was true to life as it should be and that was a better truth than the other. The only one not taken in was Sten. At the sight of that dark-skinned, impassive face, his granite certainty a bulwark, she felt her face stretch into a brilliant, relieved smile. Sten would never be anything other than what he was.

A little sheepishly, she muttered: "Loghain's plan is sound. It'll work."

The amethyst eyes never wavered. "You have carried us this far. Do not doubt that."

Absurdly touched, Rilian stammered unsuccessfully at response. Her tongue, normally so glib, failed her.

The dry, deadpan sense of humour that shone in intermittent flashes beneath Sten's monolithic silences came to her rescue. "The enemy awaits. Shall we grant him the death he asks of us?"

Rilian laughed - and for the first time in weeks felt free. It was as if a chain binding her to a world she neither liked nor understood was suddenly broken.

"It's only fair."

Strong and sustained, the voice trained by Leliana rang down the long spear of horsemen. Eerie, numinous, the high hawklike cry turned Loghain's credo "For Ferelden" to strange music: four notes, rising and falling. The riders took up the chant; the deep heavy base notes surrounded it, absorbed it, the words lost in the echo, the sound soaring like the fierce outcry of a cloud of swooping eagles. It goaded the horses more than spurs. Before they ever came in sight, the darkspawn had felt their thunder through the ground.

The mass ahead was a rippling curtain of flesh: seething, disjointed by the slow collapse of the right flank. Once again, Rilian thought of a single organism. This one responded to the invading stream of life by sending out lethal spikes. The line of darkspawn crawled towards them like the wax of a half-melted candle. The horses reared and shied, but could not veer to the side: the gully was too narrow. Urged on by the pressure behind, they ran from non-existent danger. A stray, incongruous flash of pity floated with distant unimportance: they had used the herd instinct against creatures no more capable of translating war than an earthworm could a sunset. The rising, falling rhythm juddered her bones; Racer's glistening black back was a small boat. The mud-sodden ground rolled beneath like a vast, polluted sea.

One second. Two. The ranks closed.

Impact.

Howling, storm-tossed, Rilian crashed against the dark mass. Gone was the Warden-Commander. Gone the need to mourn men killed or tainted. Gone was Rilian. Elf, horse and dog flew at their enemies. Darkspawn faces were rotting smears beneath corroding helmets; their open mouths gaping, shapeless holes. She hacked at them from side to side - once on the left and once on the right. Racer plunged, stumbled - somehow she kept her balance. Her sword was her balance - up and down, side to side, moving like a live thing. It led her, became part of her, all her will poured into it. She felt her arm turn to iron, hard as the Dalish blade, and battered away as Nelaros had once worked the forge. She did not attempt to parry the enormous, rusted blades - when they lifted them, she sliced at hands and arms. When they rushed her, she sought gaps in piecemeal armour, her grip a frantic spasm. Her mind was a dark room, fetid with taint, pulped by unbearable noise. The vast spiderweb of the hive mind squeezed her own into strange fragments: alive somewhere but in locked rooms. The dark spaces between crawled with images of predation, of unity; her mouth was open, aching, for tiny parched drops of sustenance. Somewhere above the morass of decay, of disintegration, notes of music flickered like tongues of silver fire, untouchable and out of reach.

A writhing tendril of an alien consciousness intruded - slithered through the dark spaces like a snake through rotting vegetation. She jerked upright in the saddle - the convulsive shudder of waking - drawn with the inexorability of undertow. The black flame of an iron will burned steadily through a rotting mind - fragments of brief, transient consciousness; sears of memory traces already drowning in the shadows - created order and purpose. Deep, primal yearning drew her to the drumbeat that made patterns - strategies - out of the amorphous silver song. Yet the seeking black strand struck something, like flint into tinder: the lambent flame of her own will blossomed like a rose of fire. She recognized the dark mirror of her own leadership - respected it - fought against it with every fibre of her being.

Rilian broke the surface of her dark dream; stared around her at the glistening inferno. Horses hamstrung by darkspawn axes rolled on the ground in agony, the gashes on heaving flanks already oozing corruption. The faces of dying soldiers raised to the sky like drowning men; tiny spear-tips of rain falling into mad, transparent eyes. The entire valley was no more than a mass grave - or the dark-veined womb of one of the creatures that birthed these monsters. She and Racer were standing upon a swell of higher ground; the mass of darkspawn was seething northward, fleeing the charge and pursuing Loghain's infantry - even as the predator, innocent in its ferocity, claims the bait in puny man's clever deadfall. Racer was breathing in ragged, sucking gasps; frothing sweat bathed him from chest to loins. Ravenous, beside her, was steeped in a swirl of black blood that formed macabre patterns. Jagged white teeth gleamed like blood-stained spears; the black trickle ran down his jaws. The light was murky - the world seen through a muddy pane - Rilian blinked sweat from her eyes and squinted toward the sky, churning with metallic clouds. Glints of light - as seen through a shield wall - winked out one by one as the heart of the Blightstorm approached. Flickers of malign energy preceded it: tiny, reptile tongues of green and purple lightning that glinted off steel, gilding the agonized spasms of battle in a surrealistic glow. The vast mass seemed thick - the texture of wet black wool - a dark, pulsing heart that thrummed with the feverish crawling life of an insect swarm. The blackness edged towards the greasy yellow-grey sun in a dark crescent. In moments, the throbbing bruise had covered it like sackcloth. Day darkened to night, as completely as if the battlefield were covered by a shroud. Raindrops turned to black spheres coated with an iridescent sheen, falling upon the obscene mass of wildly jerking limbs like splatters of ink, or black poppies. The dying white faces seemed to rise and fall upon a luminous dark sea.

Drawn to the black tendril of will, Rilian followed the link toward a mound of white rubble that jutted like a lighthouse to the northwest. A trio of darkspawn stood upon it. The glistening grey-skinned ogre looked like it had emerged from a vat of acid. Tattered, peeling hands the size of rocks hurled boulders at shadows of archers that dotted the Imperial Highway: erratic silhouettes against the gleaming paleness. But it was the second figure whose iron will shaped the Call. Bathed in lurid reflections of magic and flame, frenetically polished golden armour glinted wild, hard sparks. The creature's ornate two-handed sword was longer than Rilian's body. Darkspawn weapons were battlefield pickings - but Rilian saw the Hurlock had decorated the scabbard: those clear quartz crystals could only be found in the Deep Roads. She glanced down at the sheath of Adaia's dagger, which she had lovingly beaded with chips of red and green glass. Something hot burned the back of her throat: an absurd, hollow ache of sadness. That lipless, noseless face was seamed in pale folds of flesh, shrunken inward like the petals of a rotting rose. The flat, white expression was of unspeakable anguish. That empty, inhuman visage stared into her across the distance.

Rilian knew that, like her, her dark mirror saw this battle balanced on a knife edge. On the Hurlock General's command, the third figure - a smaller darkspawn - beat a primal cadence upon an enormous wardrum. The deep rumble rolled across the battlefield; a visceral, psychic awareness rippled across the mass of fleeing darkspawn. Rilian was aware of the low, voiceless thrum of the General's will: tiny sparks that lit the black sludge of mindless instinct; passed through the web like the capillaries of a single organism: mind to mind, blood to blood. The ripple became a stream, then a river, rallying to the drumbeat - out of the teeth of Loghain's trap. Rilian kicked her exhausted horse into a gallop. Racer managed a shuddering leap - then limped forward in a swaying, rocking motion like a child's toy. Darkspawn circled round, harrying her - a command to Ravenous protected her rear and flanks. In the howling darkness, he was a black, bloody-mouthed flame: leaping from the edges of her vision to rend and tear, then disappearing into shadow. Bestial, disembodied darkspawn screams rose around her - ending as choked, airless whimpers. Rilian screamed too, involuntarily, her muscles writhing with fatigue. She saw the first darkspawn to stand against her clearly, and after that they were a blur: snarling mouths, a rusted forest of dark-glinting weapons, exposed places to strike. She was suddenly aware of a dark, mounted figure riding at her side - gleaming plate armour smeared with red and black blood. The violet eyes were calm as chips of amethyst beneath the horned helm. It did not surprise her that the Sten of the Beresaad understood the situation as she did. She felt the warmth of his support like a physical touch. The drum dominated the battlefield, rolled over the distant bugles of Loghain's men, shrill whinnies of horses, and unending screams. Rilian and Sten cut their way forward, determined to silence it.

Rilian's sword was heavy - her whole body was heavy, weighted with exhaustion. Racer's head was bowed as though dark chains weighted him to the earth. The only thing she saw clearly was the grey-skinned monolith atop the rubble. Pale shreds of skin glistened in translucent rain; the droplets just beyond the edges of that swollen black cloud shimmered like silver curtains. The tableaux was backlit by Morrigan's primal magic. Rilian's retinas bore the imprint of those darting, luminous points. They splintered the darkness into myriad shadows, turned struggling figures into varied blacknesses, cast a weird shimmer over the muddy ground. The world was a shifting ambiguity - a conspiracy of light and movement that revealed only peril.

It was when she drew near - that glistening ravaged behemoth looming ahead - that Racer suddenly shied, and Rilian herself was smothered by unearthly cold. She knew the stench of darkspawn: a feral clench of atavistic life that burned above a pit of black hunger. This was the gust of a chill tomb - of clinical experimentation - of the ashes of a failed hope. A moment of uncontrollable imbalance - a rearing black wall - and Rilian was pitched out of the saddle. Her practice of the cavalry-style dismount saved her. On instinct, her right leg swung forward - up and over the lowered neck, hands grasping the base between the shoulders. She landed on her feet, the ogre filling her vision - lumbering towards her with strange simian ineptitude.

A mantle of silence dropped onto the world. Noise and colour and meaning - the cacophony of screams - luminescent motes of spelllight - drained away like blood from a wound. The shimmering indistinctness wavered and trembled; she saw the tableaux as if through a dark tunnel. Past and present collided. The near-delirious mind beneath the suffocating helm told her she had died: how else could she be facing the ogre - Duncan's ogre - killed at Ostagar? The gaping holes the twin daggers had cut into its chest revealed the white mesh of bone beneath the shreds of skin. The dead ogre and the Hurlock general in the armour of a dead king. The General charged towards her. Her body was a liquid flame of exhaustion inside the iron shell; her mind floated above, disembodied as a golem's. She felt like a shadow or her own ghost - and the sensation charred away her fear. A curious lightness filled her as she hefted the unbearable shield: the buoyancy of pure disinterest.

The two-handed sword screamed towards her - shattered the fine Dalish blade into a glittering explosion of shards. The Hurlock's boot struck her full in the chest. The Dragonscale muffled the impact. Even so, it was all but a knock-out blow, almost crushed her ribs. The world splintered into a howling, rain-lashed vortex as she tumbled, end over end, a body of pain in an earth and sky of darkness.

Rilian crawled through an ocean of mud. Rivulets of rain slithered like tentacles through furrows. White, clutching hands of dying men dragged at her limbs. Darkspawn claws were indistinct, coldly predatory things that lunged from dark fastnesses. Far above, distorted by the rippling depths of obscuring rain, grunting, panting exertion came to her as the straining of beasts. The struggling mass of men and darkspawn were faceless: mere muddy lumps with legs.

Two rotted boots - mere rags around mottled skin - loomed before her. The fetid stink burned her lungs; she retched convulsively. A long black cloud hovered over her - Rilian heard the whistle of her executioner's axe. It might have happened in the square - the punishment she had earned, before Duncan had saved her. She wanted to scream a denial: it could not end like this, after everything she had done...

"You will not harm her!" There was the ring of steel on iron. The young voice was familiar; Rilian struggled to place it, to get to her feet.

A squeal of agony - the thud of the dying creature. A vital, living presence gripped her with the strength of a tower; raised her up. Through the curtain of rain, the red-and-green emblem flickered like a many-coloured flame. The darkspawn had knocked the knight's helm askew; Ser Perth's young face with its startling purity of soul was drawn into planes and angles that spoke of years lived in hours. Specks of black blood dotted his skin like the seeds of some deadly flower. A spike of alarm shot through her.

"You've got to..." she began - and stopped, horrified, as a figure of nightmares lunged from the morass behind them. Ser Perth's reflexes saved him; he whirled, blade finding the creature's throat before the blow struck. The arc of the descending axe missed by inches - but it missed. The mass of darkspawn surged forward like a breaking wave. Ser Perth turned to face the next enemy; was soon swallowed by the tide.

Inhuman roars swelled behind her. Rilian turned back to the rain-ravaged, dark-glinting tableaux on the rubble. Ravenous circled the smaller darkspawn, who wielded a crude hand-axe. The abandoned drum lay like some strange rock: inert, faintly mournful. Ravenous reared up, muzzle gaping, forcing the darkspawn to shift backwards. At that the dog dropped to all fours and lunged.

The darkspawn was quick. The axe rose and fell. Ravenous yelped as the pitted blade glanced off his ribs, opening the flesh in a long ugly flap. Nevertheless, the dog's cry was muffled, because his teeth were fastened in the creature's thigh. A shake of the head severed arteries, stripped meat from the heavy, startlingly white thighbone.

Asala in hand, Sten fought the ogre: chips of armour and rotting shreds of cloth flying. His broad, armoured back was to Rilian. The monolith dwarfed him - but somehow Sten carried an equal presence of purpose. He dodged and rolled with the feral grace of a panther; surged to his feet behind the ogre. Asala's dark iridescence flashed once - twice. The ogre thudded to its knees, still in silence. Sten leapt. An explosion of weight and shadows and flickering light. Asala raised to the sky like a dark cross. When the point descended, there was no blood. A colourless fluid gushed from the neck. A stink like medicine and raw alcohol seared Rilian's throat.

Sten looked up - met her eyes across that distance. She gave an exhausted smile - punched the air - sharing triumph. Then a shadow loomed behind him like an open grave.

"Look out!" she screamed. As if in a dark dream, she saw the point of the General's sword burst through the armour-join at Sten's shoulder. The moment seemed to happen out of time, a simultaneous expansion of detail that hung suspended like an insect in amber: the hungry gleam of the point - the fine mist of blood that mingled with the rain - the way Sten's body jerked like a twitching marionette. His pain, his shock, registered _in_ her. She _felt_ the reptilian coldness of the blade plunge into his back; felt his disbelief and the bitter organic taste of death. A strange expression crossed the carved ebony features - the amethyst eyes widened - as if the battlefield were a revelation, had startled him with all he needed to know. Then slowly - an oddly graceful action - he slumped forward. The Hurlock jerked the obscene blade free - its eyes met hers - cold black stars in its desolation of a face.

She ran forward. Arrows drifted past: slow, trivial things. Her chest was a screaming mass of bruises; inside, the stunned emptiness had not yet begun to wake into intolerable pain. The sight of the filthy mass, moving to meet her through curtains of rain, blade dripping brilliant, vital rivulets of her friend's blood, was working in her an overwhelming amplification of her long helpless rage against the Blight. Horror and pity and disgust for this single creature stretched to encompass the wasteland of Ostagar and its ravaged multitudes of corpses: the glittering panoply of a bright generation, all cracked bones and crawling flesh that melted and pooled and oozed into the earth. Women dragged below to living graves: degraded, disintegrated, reconcatenated as monsters, bloated bellies gravid with futile multitudes of briefly animate trash.

And this, standing before her, was the target of her vengeance. Adaia's dagger tugged at her hand with its own sharp appetite. She flipped it to her right - knew the precise cut she would make. One part of her dispassionately calculated her chances: minute odds. Fang was a sleek, razor-edged weapon, glowing with lyrium-enchanted runes - but reach _mattered._

And Rilian knew her assessment was right. But it was also wrong.

She would win.

She had to win.

The Hurlock roared and lunged for her. The tongue of steel led her as she dived and rolled - stabbed downwards. The sword whistled overhead and she scuttled behind the body of the ogre. She hid behind the filthy grey mass, streaked with that medicinal fluid and glittering rivulets of rain, the stench of an open grave in her nostrils. Sten had fallen forward and now lay beside the creature he had killed. Empty eyes lamented up into the falling rain. She crouched like a cornered rat - mind white and empty - eyes translating no more than those of an animal facing mortal danger. She peered upward into a vista of oblong shapes, distorting rain and flickering light: a mass of shadowy angles where all was confusion. The Hurlock was an indistinct dark smear, turning to follow her in a macabre game of hide-and-seek. By the second step the creature had crashed to one knee. She had cut the tendons in the heel.

Rilian gathered herself and sprang - onto its back, gripping with her limbs. She felt the spikes of its armour even through her own. The world exploded into a maelstrom of weight, screams, roars. She struggled with the blade - meant to cut its throat - but found the angle of her curled right arm made the move impossible. One massive, muscled, grey-skinned arm shot out and grabbed for the weapon - yanked it from her grip. Her scrabbling finger - a red-scaled spider - pierced the dark, lost hole of one eye. Her other hand thrust darkness, with equal thoroughness, into the left. The Hurlock roared - a bestial howl of agony - shook her as a terrier shakes a rat. She clung on for dear life, while the world turned over and over on a silent demonic sea. She felt the astonishment and black rebellion in the mind which had never known defeat - the Alpha, lone survivor of a brood of hundreds, the strongest of its siblings - felt the great dark mind batter against her own. Rilian tried to leap backward - then the golem-sized arms had her by the throat. Inhuman strength and iron will choked the life from the creature who had ended its own - insisted they join each other in death. Rilian writhed and wriggled and squirmed - managed only to twist her head round so that her right cheekbone brushed the Hurlock's left. With her last strength, she bit down upon the creature's ear, grinding her teeth into the rank palpitating feast, the explosion of blood in her mouth hot and bitter as tar. But the Hurlock was inexorable - those gauntleted hands were steel forged in fire of purpose. Air-hunger thinned and bled the world to a series of pale, attenuated shadows, falling away from her like scattered petals. The whirling white storm spun into empty darkness.

* * *

The pale arc of the Imperial Highway gleamed like marble. Nathaniel Howe stood, feet planted in the classic archer's stance, presenting the darkspawn with only his profile as a target. Below, the pile of rubble felled by the unstoppable ogre lay like the wreckage of some great cathedral. The howling, gibbering mass of darkspawn had been streaming north in a dark tide; the cavalry, many unhorsed, in pursuit. Then the visceral, driving bass of the Hurlock's wardrum called the creatures back. The contradictory ripple churned up confusion, like two opposing eddies of water. More and more darkspawn scrambled atop the rubble, pouring onto the road like creatures boiling up from the Abyss. Pir Surana pushed his way forward - Nathaniel heard the Elven leader's roar as he rallied his archers. Those in front drew slender swords - not their best weapon - and braced to meet the onslaught. In the rank behind, standing beside the Antivan and Orlesian, Nathaniel worked his bow with deadly precision. In human form once more, the Marsh Witch fought at the penetration. She was destruction incarnate. Encased in armour of living rock, she wielded her staff like a spear, point glowing with a nimbus of fire. It seared vicious wounds, boiling blood cauterizing instantly. A missile of flame crackled and roared. A darkspawn, engulfed, toppled into the maelstrom below, screaming a guttural name. Nathaniel wondered who it might be.

Darkspawn archers drew blood in plenty. Their own men staggered backward, clawing at wounds. The Orlesian turned from the darkspawn atop the road to shoot downward into the mass below. Understanding that she was aiming for the leader, Nathaniel joined her. She was taking shelter behind a statue of the Rebel Prince. Fastidiously - ludicrously - she brushed dust from the exquisitely carved folds of Maric's cloak. Only when she saw Nathaniel's incredulity did she realise where her preoccupation had taken her. A sheepish smile hovered about the bee-stung mouth; the liquid, jewel-bright eyes sparkled. Then she drew her graceful double-curved bow and sighted down the shaft. At once the almost light-hearted manner shrivelled to a mask of horror. Nathaniel looked - and saw the Qunari and ogre had joined each other in death; saw the unequal struggle between the Warden and Hurlock General. Warden and darkspawn were close as lovers: the red armour glinted luridly in Nathaniel's sights as she clung monkey-like to the creature's back. The only parts of the Hurlock's body not covered by the Warden's were encased in golden plate. Tears of frustration shone upon the Orlesian's softly-curved profile.

The Warden, in her struggles, was biting off the creature's ear. The golden arc of the Warden's cheek half-covered the Hurlock's like an eclipse. The darkspawn's face reflected the silver light of the Witch's magic like a pale moon. When the spell ended, it darkened to a ravaged crater. Surrounded by the roil of battle, the target was no larger than a coin - half the size of Nathaniel's seeking arrowhead.

"No, don't!" the Orlesian cried, "You'll hit the Warden."

"I fail to see the downside," Nathaniel murmured sotto-voce. In truth, he had far too much professional pride to deliberately aim for his own ally - but should he miss, and accidentally put an end to his father's murderer, he would lose no sleep.

His very unconcern ensured the accuracy of the shot. In a perfect singleness of purpose, freed from fear and hesitation, he sighted, drew, and loosed. Things looked bright and clear, as to the swooping eagle.

The arrow shivered - a sleek silver shard - cut through the air.

Struck.

* * *

The darkspawn poured into the valley like a single organism, stamping with forty-thousand feet and howling with twenty-thousand throats. The sound was the crash and roar of an ocean storm - like the great storm off Highever coast five years ago - and it rose to join with the falling rain, as though ground and sky had changed places.

Archers along the pale arc of the Imperial Highway and the amorphous darkness of the forest of South Reach turned the right and left flank into a shambles, funnelling the howling stream into the steel wall of pikes and lines of sword and shield.

The darkspawn hit the portable barriers. The first of the creatures simply threw their bodies across them, becoming living pathways for those that followed. The pikemen, surprised by the quick failure of their defences, fell back awkwardly, weapons too unwieldy for close combat. Watching their progress like a shepherd on a mountain trail, Loghain signalled to his bugler. Three short and two long trumpet blasts shook the air. The pikemen wheeled and counter-marched, moving in a clock-wise direction, parallel to the Highway.

The first of the black powder sacks exploded. The darkspawn checked as if the detonation were a wall. More sacks followed. Billowing red-gold flame illuminated some; silhouetted others. Skin the colour of ash was bathed in a glow like banked coals. The threshing pile howled in agony like an obscene single organism of many jerking limbs.

Loghain signalled again: two sharp staccato notes. Now was when the training and communications within Denerim's infantry would be tested to its limits. No-one born after the Orlesian occupation had ever retreated under pressure. He recalled Rowan's innovations with the cavalry: her tactics of lightning manoeuvre - strike and retreat, wheel and strike again. Trained infantry could do the same, albeit slower. Units attacked the darkspawn with disciplined cohesion - then stopped, and retreated. Invariably, the darkspawn pursued, only to be struck from a different direction by another unit. Loghain sucked in a breath as one of his men tried to shield-bash a darkspawn. The creature was not even slowed. But an instant before the crude pitted axe struck, the young man stabbed upward with his shortsword. The darkspawn tumbled backward with a cut throat. Others of his unit were not so lucky. Shrill pain ripped the brave fabric of war cries and exhortations.

His men were falling back: sullenly, carefully, fighting for every few yards of ground. Positioning units as a shepherd positions his sheep-dogs, Loghain rode about the chaos, directing the retreat just where it should go. Each member of Maric's Shield commanded a squad of ten - he saw Cauthrien, soulless battle-face streaked with sweat and rain, roar at one of her charges. The Warden's drunken Dwarven companion, red beard bristling in all directions, had ignored the strategy and flung himself at a mass of darkspawn like a four-foot juggernaut. Her gauntleted hand yanked him back. Loghain was sure she would have preferred to let the foul little berserker impale himself on darkspawn spears - but they could not afford the breach of discipline.

When they had retreated almost as far as the three units of Templars, Loghain turned his horse about and rode for the ridge. He passed Rylock, at the head of the central unit. Beneath the febrile glitter of her armour lay the heavy darkness of purpose. Between Templars and ridge, the four units that made up Loghain's reserve lay in wait. Eamon commanded the remainder of his men - all those not with the Warden or the Bastard Prince at Redcliffe. Loren and Ceorlic commanded the meagre forces they had managed to dredge up. Colourful banners billowed ostentatiously in the howling storm. Loghain disapproved. They were cloth, forming a square with sides about the length of a man's arm. Braces at top and bottom held them rigid at the top of their carrying staff; this made them difficult to handle in the wind, as the staggering bearers illustrated. Carried facing the enemy, they were easily recognised from front or back, but impossible to read from the flanks. Perhaps Eamon, Loren and Ceorlic hoped to cow the darkspawn with their family crests. The banners served as a dependable guide only to troops far in the rear - which was certainly the eagerly sought position of the three. By contrast, Arl Wulf, Bann Sighard and Arl Bryland led from the front - their troops fought alongside those of Denerim and Gwaren. They carried much smaller, unbraced banners: long and narrow, more easily rolled and hidden until needed for action. Once unfurled, they didn't get in the way. Arl Thomas Howe commanded the fourth reserve unit. To his credit, the young man had chafed at the position - but the inexperience of Lord Edelbrek's farmer levies and the barely leashed hostility between Highever and Amaranthine troops had worried Loghain. The unofficial "fifth unit" were the dog-handlers and mabari. Once the infantry had led the darkspawn into the trap - once the Templars' iron fist had smashed their lines - the war-dogs would help complete the rout.

Loghain rode up the long curve of the ridge, and found the mage and Templar standing over the bodies of four dead genlocks. Gazing down at the valley below, he waited for the moment. He viewed the field with the satisfaction of a farmer at harvest-time: through his careful husbandry, it stood for the reaping just as it should. His withdrawing infantry had spread from the Imperial Highway to the Drakon River, in the shape of a sickle blade. Enclosed in its curve were the darkspawn.

"Now!" he barked - and the Blood Mage raised his staff to the sky.

There was a lull in the battle - almost a stillness - the heavy pause before thunder. Then the units of infantry parted like myriad small waves around the three-pronged iron fist of Templars. The deep bristling mass of pikemen turned anti-clockwise - ponderously but smoothly, like an enormous door. A ripple among the black ribbons of darkspawn to the south told him the Warden's charge had begun.

_...I've worked with Elven archers for thirty years - I never thought I'd see an Elven cavalry general. She understood my briefing - everything pat. But only half there - she had that look of Cailan..._

Tangled images twisted in his mind like the poisonous snake of the Warden's story. He saw the lambent eyes dulled to opaque glass; the frivolous braids matted with blood. The number of Wardens in Ferelden cut to two: the frail Orlesian and the unreliable Bastard Prince. And if they failed – the country would be hostage to Orlais. Once more, Loghain cursed Riordan. The damned Orlesian had explained why Wardens were needed – but had refused to reveal the formula for the Joining Ritual. The Wardens' cache in Denerim palace had been empty. Plans and possibilities raced through his mind as rapidly as shuffled cards. He had only one hand to play: return to Ostagar and bring back the supplies left by the Wardens. After six months, any remaining mixture would be useless – but a Blood Mage might be able to recreate the formula...

Loghain frowned. Something was wrong. The ripple had slowed to a trickle – the darkspawn were bunched in a black tumour by the southern edge of the Highway. One of Gwaren's archers reported to him. Pir Surana's boy: built like a horsewhip – skin the colour of braised almonds – eyes that missed nothing. One of his finest young scouts – and, so rumour had it, hiding a spark of magical talent. Because of the service of the boy's father, Loghain contrived to remain ignorant – particularly in the presence of the Chantry.

"Ser – the Warden's through the gully. I haven't spoken to her – you said ride straight to you when I saw it. But I saw her there in the van – I saw her red plume. The Dalish have broken through – the right flank's rolled up. But the creatures are pouring onto the Highway – they have an enormous monster hurling rocks – a leader in golden armour – a war drum. Last I saw, the Warden was riding in that direction..."

_...So – she has the right instincts. But even if she survives, she won't be in time. Once the creatures rally to the drum, they're out of the trap. And if they take the high ground..._

"You've done well, soldier."

Loghain signalled to his bugler, and four short blasts summoned the reserve.

"Men of Amaranthine – to me!" Arl Thomas marched at their head, ruddy face flushed with excitement. Loghain dismounted – threw the reins to Surana – locked shields with the men in the front rank. Past the pikemen, they fought their way through the bunched mass of darkspawn with workmanlike determination. Loghain was instinct and training – more a force than a man. The Howe levies saw – cheered him – redoubled their efforts. Between the freeze-frames of combat - snarling mouths, crude weapons that menaced him, exposed places to strike – Loghain caught surreal images of the Warden's struggle. He saw with mingled amusement and pathos that, when the chips were down, the Knight of Redcliffe – the Finder of the Sacred Ashes – had abandoned helm and shield to fight in the only way a five-foot-five Elf could against a six foot, heavily-armoured General: like a gutter rat. He reached her just as the arrow seared past – drawing a furrow of blood across the Warden's cheek before exploding into its target.

The Warden was standing behind the kneeling creature - knee pressed forward into its spine - when next Loghain looked. Her face was a sweating corrugation of rage. One hand jerked the hairless skull upward to expose the throat. Back arched like a drawn bow and knife raised as she howled in tearless anguish. Her face long, attenuated – a screaming white skull – the skin of her cheek hanging down and mouth flecked with black blood. A butcher's image – a thing given over to murder. In the same thought-instant, he saw she cherished her hatred the way he nurtured his for Orlais. There was a stench of obscenity about it. Loghain – who had hunted chevaliers the way other men hunt animals – felt not distaste, but recognition.

He reached her – grabbed her shoulders – shook her. She blinked – pulled herself back from the brink of madness. Reluctantly – she was in a mode of being she did not want to leave.

"Warden: I need you to rally the cavalry – close the gap with the Dalish lines and push northward." She gave a brief nod – lambent eyes sane in the bloody mask of her face. He bent to pick up the arrow – recognised the colours of Howe in the fletching – looked to the white arc of the road and the tiny silhouetted figures. He himself – in his prime – would have missed that shot. Which made the young man the greatest archer he'd known. Unless – he _had_ missed...

Dismissing the thought, Loghain led his men in a push northward, closing the gap between the cavalry and the Imperial Highway and tightening the noose. With the drum silenced, the flow of darkspawn dwindled to a trickle. Already, the archers had retaken the Highway – were turning the ground below to a shambles.

Twice, he caught sight of the Warden: saw that what she lacked as a warrior she made up for as a leader. She tore through the chaos like a living flame – organising, directing, fighting. One glimpse showed her gathering knights and Dalish into a mixed unit and sending them into battle. Another time, Warden and mabari were part of the fight. The dog attacked head-on – the Warden darted behind and finished the creatures off in a variety of close, messy, underhanded ways. Loghain approved. These were methods tried and tested by starving farmers on chevaliers. The glimpse lasted only seconds. In that time, Warden and mabari surrounded themselves with carnage.

The swarm of infantry, no longer running but following the Templars' push, closed the trap. They fought with the ferocity of men who knew they must win or die - then with the abandon of men discovering they need not be beaten twice. Surrounded, crushed against themselves, the superior numbers of the darkspawn were worse than useless. Panic was Ferelden's ally – and she clawed the creatures mercilessly.

Loghain signalled Cauthrien to open the way to the ashen curve of the Drakon River. A series of short, sharp trumpet blasts parted the north-eastern units. The darkspawn eased toward what they believed to be escape. At once, the reserve were after them: howling wardogs pressing in, hanging on the flanks, destroying those who turned to fight.

What had been a battle became a massacre.

It ended as all combat actions: in a lull pregnant with exhausted panting, the suffering of the wounded. Grey with exhaustion, Loghain leaned against the stark blackness of a skeletal tree, dying roots tainted with the oily sheen that floated upon the river. He heard in that silence the mixture of quiet and loss and fearful hope that comes to every combat survivor: alive, assessing cost.

He saw to the hospitalisation of the wounded - the burning of darkspawn dead and burial of their own. Cauthrien was his second self, knowing his orders before he gave them. The Warden reunited with comrades and soldiers - the Antivan, Orlesian, Dwarf, Marsh Witch and red-haired cousin were all unharmed. Soon, the mass grave yawned in the muddy ground - the smoke of death pyres formed an opaque and greasy pall like a giant lid - the meandering lines of men carrying wounded were heading northward, so coated with mud they seemed like shambling clay golems. The first thing healthy men did was head upstream, to wash away the unspeakable detritus. Downstream, the fish already floated upon water poisoned by darkspawn dead. In the choking wasteland – black rain falling through the smoke - the Warden walked among the dying world, limbs curiously disjointed, as though someone pulled her strings. He found her by the river, kneeling over the body of one of her dead. Blood formed a blackish pool that glittered darkly. One side of the dead woman's face was startlingly beautiful. The other was flayed off to show a bony grin. The Warden pulled off her gauntlets – very gently reached out and used the blood as glue to put the ruined skin back in place. Her own face was almost a mirror – a flap of flesh hung loosely from her cheek. She was drenched from head to toe in darkspawn blood – like some hero of old bathed in a river of death.

"I remember this," the Warden said softly, "They pulled her from the horse. Thank the Maker they only killed her." For Loghain, the morass of memories were already beginning to blur into the needs of the present and future; the Warden was living them still – trying to make real to herself events that could no more be grasped than time in the Fade, or delirium. He'd already heard the Orlesian composing a ballad in which the Warden fought the Hurlock General toe-to-toe. Perhaps the Warden would write an anthem for these doomed youth – not yet realising that the only honour one could give was not song, but silence.

She came to the body of the Qunari and knelt beside him: face dead with exhaustion but eyes glitteringly alive – boiling with unshed tears. She stared down into the carved granite face – the graven ebony features - the lifeless amethyst eyes.

"His people do not bury their dead. A Qunari is his role – his duty." One slender, supple hand reached down and very gently closed the eyes. "This – is no more him than a...a genie is its bottle. Meat only; the man has gone." The hand moved from the dead face to the glittering iridescence of the sword, beside it. She picked up sword and scabbard hesitantly – reverently. "He called Asala his soul. He could not have returned home without it. Now – if I live long enough – I will bring him home."

She rose, carrying the blade almost as tall as she on her back, as she would have carried a comrade from the field. Loghain gestured to her ruined cheek.

"You should get that tended to."

The Warden looked at him vaguely, still teetering on the edge of madness. Her other hand reached down to stroke the mabari's head. "Oh – I'll be alright. Ravenous is worse off than I am. But we're both immune to darkspawn taint."

The words strangled in her throat – choked by a realisation so monstrous she paled. Understanding hit Loghain low in the gut. He grunted at the force of it – felt his stomach contract to a burning, live coal.

"How...how many wounded do we have?" the Warden asked unsteadily.

Loghain forced his reply out like metal grinding on stone. "Five hundred. How many of those will become infected, Warden?"

The Warden stammered – waffled. "I...that is...it depends on the kind of injury. Magic – arrows – those wounds won't become tainted. Even sword-wounds – there's a chance - if there's no blood to blood contact." Her skin took on a greenish pallor. Her eyes were sunken – the closed mouth seemed to show beneath it the rigid grin of the skull. "But darkspawn coat their weapons in their own blood, like poison..." She turned away – bent double – was violently sick over the decaying ground. She backed away from her mess: clumsy, beastlike. But when she turned to face him the pupils glinted like sword-points within her hollow amber eyes.

"Ser Perth – saved me," she said, "He got their blood on his skin. Ser Maron put out his shield to cover me – they caught him under the arm. And the others...all of them...I have to see them."

Loghain smiled a graveyard smile. "Of course you do, Warden-Commander. As do I. We'll go together."

They made their way across the waste of dark and silence, toward the tallow-coloured smear of the hospital tent.


	15. Chapter 15: The Alchemy Of Light

_Body and spirit I surrendered whole_

_To harsh instructors - and received a soul_

_If mortal man could change me through and through_

_From all I was - what may the God not do?_

The Wonder, Epitaphs of the War, Rudyard Kipling

The Blightstorm had passed, leaving the sky a poisonous green bruise, charred with dull grey tendrils of smoke. Columns of men toiled in silence: burning the bodies of darkspawn dead and burying their own. Wounded were brought to the base of the hillside, to the long line of tattered grey tents that stretched to the edge of the Drakon River. Icy needles of rain made the cloth ripple and shiver like shroud sails. Chantry healers passed to and fro, carrying water. It had surprised them to be placed under command of a mage, but they made no complaint.

In total, the wounded numbered near five-hundred. Wynne and Rilian had moved among them, both able to tell very quickly whether someone had been infected. To Wynne, the slow, heavy sludge of disease showed as dark patches in the auras surrounding her patients: violently shifting grey-and-black bruises. It made her hands itch, seeking to pour out the power that welled inside her, as two levels of water must balance. But the darkness of rot resisted, rebuffed her. Rilian's Warden senses must feel different, she thought. She glanced over at the young woman, who bent to take the hand of a boy who could not be more than seventeen, pinched white face half-shadowed. Rilian had described the taint as a dark dirge that played at the edges of her mind, seeping into thought and music and dreams like dye in water. There was a drop of poison in every cup. The thought made Wynne glance towards the griffin tunic Rilian wore: criss-crossed with seams where the mage had mended it. She kept needle and thread in constant readiness within the pouch at her belt, where more sensible mages carried potions, and wished all damage were that simple to repair. She had also sewn the Warden's cheek, cut by the arrow that had killed the Hurlock General. The pattern of black stitches lay like a caterpillar across her left cheekbone. Rilian had refused healing for it. Foolish pride, Wynne had called it. She'd meant it then and she thought so now.

The triage saw the tainted separated from the rest of the wounded, while the knight Cauthrien and the men of Maric's Shield kept order. Riots ensued - wounded insisting they were not tainted; friends demanding to see them - and were swiftly put down. Volunteers - including Ser Otto, himself wounded, and Jowan - helped carry them to the moribund tent. Two Chantry women were washing knives and scissors in basins of heated water. The light was bad: the tent lit only by an oil lamp that cast a dirty yellow glow that melded with motes of dust to form a heavy, soup-like haze. It cast beds, basins and chairs as shadowy, abstract blocks of darkness. To Wynne's eyes, the amorphous shapes seemed to meld and shift, ambiguous and vaguely threatening. The floor of rushes was littered with bloody bandages, slimy with unspeakable detritus.

In an angle of the tent made by the large stove, a young Templar was crying. He looked about the Warden's age. The Chantry healers had stripped his amour: the skin around his naked thigh seemed to have been crushed, and everything was soaked with red. Newer, darker streams of blood formed an obscene spiderwork. Rather than being brighter, the newer rivulets already showed the oily glisten of taint. The patient was tossing his head from one side to the other, mumbling to himself. His face was completely drained of colour, and streaming with sweat.

"Rilian - go and fetch me some boiling water, and I want you to take the two knives: stick one in the fire for a minute or two - and the second one, leave it in the fire."

The Warden obeyed, and returned with a pot filled with boiling water and the dagger which was shimmering with heat.

"Hold his leg," Wynne said softly to the Warden. As Rilian moved to obey, the tent flap was opened and two soldiers came in. Wynne could smell the rain on them: she looked up to meet the dark eyes of Knight Commander Rylock and the steel-blue gaze of the Teyrn. Rylock's face was white – her skin almost translucent over the angled bones – and rather than its usual impassive mask her face held an odd frozen stillness. Wynne had seen the same look on the faces of mages after the horrors of Uldred's rebellion. Her eyes were luminous with exhaustion; the grey in her hacked-at hair seemed to have doubled since the morning. Under the Templar's skin, Wynne imagined a mechanism of overdriven steel and wire: no soft tissue, no fat. The thin, bloodless lips and gaunt, sharp-angled face had long resigned themselves to a life without care or glamour: her features did what she told them to do, and when they were told nothing, remained blank. The Teyrn's face was dark, but composed; his eyes quite steady. A series of craggy shadows, like those of a cliff-face; the dim light seemed to accentuate the jutting beak of a nose and broad, strong sweep of long cheekbones. His eyes were dead and fierce with hard-won, immutable conviction.

In silence, the two Commanders came to stand beside Wynne, supporting the young lad, holding him steady. Wynne reached for the leather case clipped to her belt and unrolled it, drawing out an empty cup, several needles which already had threads attached, tweezers and tiny brass clamps.

"Teyrn - Knight-Commander - help roll him onto his side and then hold him tight."

Rylock and Loghain followed her orders. Wynne carefully examined the wound, running her fingers over the back of the man's leg. She took the still-hot dagger, positioned it underneath the leg on the opposite side of the wound, drove the knife in half-way to the hilt and rotated the blade.

The young Templar cried out and began to struggle.

"It's alright...you'll be alright.." the Warden kept whispering – an odd counterpoint to the Chant the Knight-Commander intoned: the only words of comfort and reassurance the woman knew.

Wynne cut the exit wound wider and, using one of the brass clamps, pulled the wound apart. The cup caught the steady flow of tainted blood as the healer drew as much of the poison as she could from his body. Taking a pair of tweezers from her kit she reached into the wound, drawing the artery which was spurting blood.

"Not the main one, thank the Maker..."

"Damn it, mage, he's bleeding to death!" the Teyrn snapped.

"Just shut up and get the other knife from the fire!"

Loghain obeyed, holding the now-glowing dagger, the hilt wrapped with a piece of smouldering canvas. Wynne took the dagger, then deftly touched the blade against the artery. A steamy cloud of boiling blood hissed upward from the wound. The Templar jerked, trying to kick, but the three soldiers held him tight. The Warden had begun to cry.

Wynne repeated the process with the front of the wound, then cauterized that as well. Finally, she drew the boiled bandages, stuffed both wounds, then tightly wrapped a compress round the leg. At last she breathed a sigh of relief, laid the equipment down, and began the soft chant of magic, feeling the power course through body and mind, lighting her hands in a luminescent blue haze. The other three fell silent as Wynne slowly reached out, placed both hands upon the young man's leg, and closed her eyes.

She felt the healing power lift and gather her up an exhilaration like no other unless birds felt this way, swooping and gliding. In moments the torn flesh knitted and closed. She could only hope the bleeding and the flame had done enough - stopped the insidious darkspawn poison from eating into body and mind until it rode him to a screaming, gibbering death.

The three of them worked in silence, as the rain pattered hollowly upon the yellow hide of the tent, while Wynne repeated the process for all the wounded here. The heavy, crawling darkness of taint retreated slowly, grudgingly, from her power: she could feel, in her hands, the slow withdrawal of something dire. She could feel the sweat trickling down her face, her sight narrowed to a single core of light: the vision of power, which perceived each strand of disease or injury, which knew when the light had worn or driven it away - and when it had not. The taint wove dark, glistening strands - much like the Warden described the web that connected her with the darkspawn hive-mind: the Warden's power that was as much curse as gift. When she had done she was exhausted, barely able to stand: the Warden supported her as she always did. Those for whom the treatment had worked were carried to the main tent: leaving eighty-six Bannorn infantry, five Night Elves and twenty Templars for whom it had not. The Warden's face was pinched and white.

"Why?" she asked tightly, "Has no-one ever sought a cure for this disease? Duncan told me the Wardens have prepared for this battle for four-hundred years: that they alone knew the horde had not been defeated. Why spend that time recruiting men - and ignore completely the chance to end the sickness? Someone should _know_: even the Ash Warriors knew of a flower that could..."

"We tried the swamp flower at Ostagar," Wynne answered heavily, "It does not work on men - in any case, the season is wrong..."

The Warden's face flushed red with anger. "Someone should know better than that! The Circle Tower - the Wardens - no-one even _talks_ to each other!" She stopped, drew in a sharp breath, struggling for control. She and Wynne moved away from the others and at last the Warden spoke the words Wynne had hoped never to hear:

"We must do for these men what we would wish for ourselves."

Wynne wondered if the Maker Himself were that certain; were all the Elven people like that - so sure of themselves, so all-of-apiece? The Warden had the rooted integrity of a young tree: poisoned, uprooted, branches of possibility lopped away, responsibilities grafted on like a wire mesh, forcing it to grow in stark, soldierly lines - but as long as she lived she would be the same tree, roots seeking life and head full of dreams, raised to the sky. Wynne had realised, knowing her, that those who had no intellectual grounding could nonetheless find another route to do right: knowing it intuitively, as a tree knows good soil, by how it flourishes.

She herself, her spirit of Faith flickering inside her, often felt as if they were made of shadows and light - like the play of moonlight on dark water - shapeless except in opposition to each other: a constant thrum of tension that was the source of the power that sprang up fountain-like within. This amorphous dance was contained and encircled by the ivory tower of her learning: all bloodless certainties and bookish wisdom. She knew the others thought of her as a dried-up old biddy, a busybody spouting moral doctrine without having lived in the real world. They could not know of the spirit nestled within as tenderly as the child she had carried for nine months - the little boy loved and lost. Raging emotions - dubious moral choices - dirty hands: were all poison to the life with whom she shared a bond that made the love of mother and child seem like casual affection; she could not indulge. She had shared her secret with only one person - the Warden - to whom she had also confided her personal moral credo: that the ends do not justify the means. The Warden had listened, learned and grown. Yet now it was the young woman who inspired her. Rilian's willingness to do violence to her own soul, if it would help others, made Wynne put aside the most sacred vow of any Circle Healer: First, do no harm... She only wished she had done as much for the wounded of Ostagar, all those months ago. Sometimes, hating the Teyrn - the man who had ordered the retreat - was the only thing that silenced the screams that still rang down the corridors of her mind.

In silence, Wynne and Rilian moved to the table and the Warden helped her carefully lay out the items from her pack: spider toxin, deathroot, and a concentrator agent. All needed to make the potion known as "Quiet Death".

She had barely finished the mixture when the first scream sounded. These screams were entirely involuntary: produced by the organs of the dying soldiers, writhing with taint. Wrists chafed raw with blood and skin already beginning to slough off were tied to the pallets. Some laughed as they howled; others prayed. The young faces were being eaten by the grey spiderwork of corruption; eyes were milky and dead-looking, as though gossamer-fine strands of web had been woven over them. They were dreaming in the heavy silence - fixing their fading vision on the dirty grey air of their demi-tomb. They were dreaming - staring from dark sockets with mad eyes - turning toward the possibility of an inner vision.

A harsh scraping sound brought Wynne's vision round to Ser Tavish - Rylock's second-in-command. He was hunched forward, ape-like, straining at his bonds. The madness was a fire in his eyes and his cheek twitched. Yellowish froth coated tombstone teeth and formed a thin line of scum along his lips. He strained at the rope with fingers clawed and a noise in his throat that was not human nor yet animal. From his torn wrists the blood trickled down and clung in the hair of his forearms with the stickiness of melted chocolate. His eyes flitted and wandered about the room with the irregularity of moths. With each jerk of his head the froth sprayed from his mouth and splattered his chest and arms.

Even as Wynne headed towards him the Knight Commander was there. Rylock approached steadily, unwavering, her Knife of the Divine glittering in her gauntleted right hand. Unlike the Warden and Teyrn, who had removed their armour before coming here, Rylock seemed to have taken special pains with hers. The glimmering silver shell encased her thin, hard-muscled body; the knife played with light as Wynne had once played with fire. Slow and inexorable as some cold and precise timepiece, Rylock approached the edge of the pallet and sat down. Then, before Wynne could stop her, the Templar ripped the purple sash from around her waist - wrapped it around the hilt to prevent the blood-spatter to her face - placed the tip of the knife with surgical precision between the fourth and fifth rib, over the heart...drove it downwards with all her weight behind it.

_"Here lies the Abyss, the well of all souls, from whose emerald waters doth life begin anew…come to me, child, and I shall embrace you. In my arms lies Eternity."_

Rylock withdrew the knife, sliding it free of the agonized body now relaxed in death. She drew her iron-clad fingers across the staring eyes, closing them with the waxen peace of an effigy, and with quick, deft moves untied the arms and folded them across his chest.

Fury rose in Wynne. Rylock had no right to kill a man like this...not after Wynne's creation of the potion had cost every ounce of resolution she had! The callousness seemed all-of-apiece with the Templar mindset that would condemn a whole Circle to die because of the actions of a few...with the unthinking obedience that had seen a younger Rylock take Wynne's child to be raised by the Chantry and murder her runaway apprentice...

"Knight-Commander," she said, and her voice came out so calm, so cold that it astonished her, "I have prepared a potion to ease these poor men's passing. Is it really necessary to butcher them in their beds? Is that what the last sight of their fellows should be? Even Templars…" Wynne choked the last words off, suddenly appalled as she realised what she had meant by them. It was all too easy for mages to dehumanize Templars even as they accused the Templars of the same crime. Would there ever be an end to it? _Only when we come to see each other as people first, mage and Templar second. Yes: when the Maker returns in a golden chariot and the Void freezes over..._

Rylock's shoulderblades moved closer together and her chin came up slightly as she battled to control the sting. She pursed her lips until control returned, dark eyes flashing with an icy, bleak pride that would have shamed the Templar had she been aware of it. It was Wynne, not Rylock, who winced.

"_Even_ Templars? My men will die by a sword of mercy as Andraste did; not by a mage's poison. They deserve nothing less." Rylock strode forward, forcing her to step aside, though she was careful to keep the blood-sodden sash away from Wynne's body. She did not take time to unwrap it - doubtless she knew she would need it again very soon.

Wynne had not noticed the grizzled, dark-shrouded form of the Teyrn until he spoke. He was sat by the bedside of one of his own soldiers. He was wearing only a sweat-stained gambeson over leather trousers and boots. Wynne wore gloves and had wrapped a protective cloth around her face - Loghain went bare-handed and bare-headed, as if he didn't fear infection. The ashen curve of his lips might have been irony or pain.

"So," he murmured sotto-voce to Rylock as the Templar passed him, "There is some fire in your veins that isn't lyrium." Wynne remembered the Teyrn's previous scathing appraisal of Rylock as a thin-lipped termagant, all spit-and-polish. Clearly, the battle and its aftermath had altered his perception. She did not expect Rylock to take kindly to the flippant reference to the Templar ritual of lyrium and prayers - and indeed she stiffened angrily, though too tired to object. Loghain had better be careful, Wynne thought: too much of his teasing would earn him a taste of the Knight Commander's dark, sharp wit which, however infrequently used, could be as murderous as her blade.

"Come now, Madam," Loghain said to Wynne with surprising gentleness - the gravelly shout reduced to a low rumble - "We can surely grant these men the dignity of dying after their own custom."

Resentment flared anew: red-raw, uncaring. Wynne could not forget Loghain's treachery at Ostagar - any more than she could forget his dealings with Uldred. He had sabotaged centuries of a delicate balancing act - had fed the ambitions of one petty tyrant over countless mages who held opposing views - all to make mages into his own personal weapons. Like so many others in power, he had tried to force his ideas of right - which may or may not have _been_ right, but no man could know that - upon them. _He thought he had the right - that_ was the root of all evil...and the children at the Tower - _her_ children - had paid the price. Like Rylock, Loghain had no compunction about sacrificing the few for "the greater good".

"I should have expected such from you, Loghain Mac Tir! After the thousands who died at Ostagar, these poor souls must surely be a pittance."

There was a moment's stillness. Wynne confronted dry wide eyes, steel-blue irises stretched to a pale rim around the black; hard-shut white lips and dilated nostrils: a blazing rage, condensed by silence like the core of a furnace. For a moment, she had a sense of actual menace.

"Eight-six of my men are dying here - men I picked, trained, men I loved like family. Five Night Elves I have known for twenty years - men who fought for Ferelden while you were cloistered in your ivory tower. Don't ever tell me what my position means, do you hear me? Never. I won't warn you again."

Something warned Wynne to say absolutely nothing. She stood still, held and pinioned like a bird under the jewelled stare of a snake. Loghain turned on his heel, strode away.

He left a silence that ached like a wound.

In the far right corner of the tent, The Warden approached poor young Ser Perth with the vial. The knight of Redcliffe bore no visible wounds - but must have been in contact with tainted blood, for his chalk-white face bore the tell-tale spiderwork and his eyes were lurid with pain. He was mumbling to himself - Wynne strained to catch the words:

_"And the Light shall lead you safely through the paths of this world…and you shall know no fear of death - for today is not your day to die: I will make sure of that..."_

The Warden visibly blanched - shaking so hard that most of the Quiet Death splashed over her own tunic. She glanced upward - met the dark gaze of Rylock with tortured eyes. Wynne vaguely remembered an argument between the two over those very words:

_"You have no right to make promises you can't keep, Warden. An honourable death in the Maker's service is _all_ you can promise."_

Rylock's sombre eyes were bright with shared pain and a look of tamped-down semi-crushed understanding. Wynne would not have thought her capable of such generosity - neither would she have thought Loghain capable of the gentleness he showed to his wounded men. He offered neither words of comfort nor words from the Chant – simply sat by the bedside of each of his soldiers, as he might have sat beside them off-duty in a tavern, and recalled the battle. He knew every man by name – seemed to have personally witnessed each act of heroism. As the soldier's deeds were recalled to him the young, ravaged face twisted in a pained smile; some life seemed to come back into the pale deathmask - he bragged a little, and essayed a joke. When the Teyrn offered the vial it was as casually as he would have offered a drink – the man took it, drank deeply, and settled back with a satisfied sigh. The Teyrn sat with him until the end, when he closed his eyes and breathed deeply like a man who has just completed the most exhausting race of his life.

Wynne never knew what made her approach him - she only knew it was better to swallow her pride than be so wrong. The Teyrn looked up warily. The words of apology stuck to her tongue as though they had claws but she forced them out:

"I...feel I should admit...I may have been wrong about you, Loghain Mac Tir," she admitted grudgingly. She was not looking at Rilian - but she could feel the Warden's approval like sunlight on her skin.

The Teyrn cut his eyes to Rylock in a moment of humour, soldier-to-soldier, at the mage who had to pick the absolute worst time to make an emotional admission. Maker - it was Greagoir all over again! That insufferable male arrogance that had alternately amused and exasperated her - and that she liked to puncture with well-placed barbs. She had one ready - opened her mouth...

"As it is a rather brave thing to admit a mistake, I will only say: thank you."

Nothing was going the way it was supposed to! He was _infuriating._

"Yes, well," she snapped, thrown completely off her guard, "Enjoy it, for it won't happen often."

The faint trace of a smile warmed the steel-blue gaze.

Quietly, under the yellowish strands of thick candlelight, the four worked through the dust-choked air, the first gossamer strands of understanding woven between them, like the thread with which Wynne had stitched the Warden's wound, mending tears.

* * *

At long last, the only breaths came from the four of them, and the tent lay shrouded in a vast silence. Loghain beckoned to Rilian, Rylock and Wynne:

"This tent gets burned, and everything in it."

Leaving everything behind, the four stepped outside into the valley of death and the rain that turned the mud of the battlefield to stinking sludge. Though the Blightstorm had passed, the rain itself still carried an oily sheen, like the ballbearings Adaia had bought Rilian as a child, that seemed to carry an iridescent purple smear. A flicker of anxiety brushed her numbed brain, lightly as the wings of a moth, then was gone, swallowed by the morass of exhaustion. As a Warden, she was in no danger herself: surely the water was not so steeped in poison as to be a danger to the others? She tried to think back to the sketchy history Duncan had given her - but his tales had stopped at the battle of Ayesleigh and the victory of Garahel...Rilian had loved the story of the Alienage-born hero, and only now realised how lacking in real knowledge the legends were. She felt, once more, the dull flicker of anger. _After four-hundred years we should know more than we do. Is wilful ignorance the same as choosing evil? Or does evil come with knowledge, as the Chantry teaches?_

At the thought, she glanced towards the stark purity of Rylock's profile. The Templar gazed up bleakly at the lowering sky.

"Fire won't burn here. No fire at all."

Wynne met the eyes of the taller Templar with much the same strange, closed fierceness she had worn when facing Loghain.

"Magefire will."

Rylock was too self-controlled to flinch - but Rilian read the memories behind her hooded eyes as clearly as if she had been there herself. Time - always so tenuous when Rilian became exhausted - cartwheeled backwards...

_A dockside evening, redolent with the smells of oil, the sea, fish-guts and refuse. Smoke rising and curling from chimneys...the yowl of cats prowling on their beams. Fifteen-year-old Rilian shuffled home, so exhausted she could barely think straight. Tiny puffs of wind danced with chill fingers upon her shaven scalp - she reached slender fingers up to touch it self-consciously. She had sworn to put away beauty and music forever...could never close her eyes without seeing the ruin the guards had made of her mother's: the map of scars where the right hand had been, her dying whisper: "I spent my beauty as a shem spends money." But still, Rilian's vanity endured, retaliated: she couldn't help but hope the haircut brought out her eyes..._

_On her way home, Rilian - greatly daring - stopped at the dockside market. It was mostly human vendors here - but none so high-and-mighty they'd turn their nose up at Elven coin. Rilian had never had money of her own to spend before - and to pick up a copper piece on her very first day! She paused a moment, admiring its rich sheen and the way it lay satisfyingly in her palm...Steeling herself - not quite convinced she'd ever see it's like again - she paid for a big bag of pork scratchings. On impulse, she decided to stop at a familiar human apartment before returning home. Shianni always frowned on sharing with anyone who wasn't Elven - but to Rilian a man who lived like an Elf and shared what he had freely counted as one of their own. Rilian gazed down at the delicious greasy bag and a faint frown of guilt creased her freckled nose as she remembered where the coin had come from. A backhander - for looking the other way as a crate of smuggled lyrium made its way to Redcliffe. A moment later the frown smoothed out, and Rilian straightened virtuously. It was not _her_ fault that the Knight Commander at Redcliffe would rather indulge his habit than protect his people. All the same, it was best not to tell Ser Otto - she wouldn't want to spoil his pleasure in the gift. Humming to herself, Rilian reached the battered wooden door, knocked cheerfully, and when the serene voice answered, pushed it open._

_Confused, she stopped. Ser Otto was not alone. A fully-armoured Templar was with him. Tall, thin, gleaming like a silver sun._

_It was the first time Rilian had heard a Templar other than Ser Otto or the boy Alistair speak...and she found herself unsettled by the flat, emotionless monotone. There was something else strange about the voice too, though at first she couldn't think what. Maybe it was the accent? The Templar did _have_ an accent - but there was something else..._

_"We only have four squires now: Alistair, Bonaduce, Richart, and Cullen. Fulcher was recently expelled for unmentionable conduct involving a - mage."_

_The Templar spat the last word out like a sour grape - it could have been replaced with "pile of dead maggots". Rilian blinked, nonplussed, feeling suddenly like an intruder - but in another moment Ser Otto was greeting her with his customary smile. Even with the new scars - still drawn in livid red across his blinded eyes - he had a smile like sun on flowers. Rilian could not keep from smiling back - and knew he heard the smile in her voice even though he couldn't see her._

_"I brought you some pork scratchings - I thought we could have them for dinner."_

_"That would be wonderful. Knight-Commander Rylock, may I introduce my friend Rilian."_

_Rylock turned - and Rilian suddenly twigged what was strange about the Templar's voice: "he" was actually a woman!_

_"How do you do," she offered shyly, "I didn't know the Order recruited women."_

_The Templar remained as blank and stony-faced as a statue. Something about the pinched frown reminded Rilian of Aunt Elva._

_What a beast! Be merciful unto me, oh Maker, for a dragon would swallow me whole!_

_Rilian tried again - surely even a shemlen female Templar was not immune to the sort of compliments shared among Elven women._

_"Well - I can certainly see why they didn't need to alter the fit of the armour. You're as flat and straight as the Vhenadahl's trunk." That was about the finest compliment one could give a shem woman - slenderness being the Elven ideal of beauty. Most human women were thought of as grossly physical creatures - their bulging chests and fleshy curves more animal than attractive._

_The compliment, however, seemed to be lost on the woman. The atmosphere dropped another few degrees._

_Slender as a broomstick, more like, Rilian thought in exasperation, If I didn't know she was a Templar I'd suspect her of flying on one..._

_"Shall I," she asked, a little desperately, "Make some tea?"_

_"Oh, yes, please," answered Ser Otto - who seemed to be having difficulty keeping a straight face, "And do tell me," he continued gently, "How went your first day as a dockworker?"_

_Rilian felt her face crumpling - suddenly acutely aware of the jagged glass she carried hidden in her boot. It was a piece of glass from a guardhouse window, smashed during the summer riots - she had painted over one side to make a mirror. But now it was used not for vanity but protection. She turned, busied herself with making the tea, and tried to find words to explain to two humans what it was like. Shems, even nice ones, had certain limitations of experience._

_"It was," she answered, trying to be as delicate as she could, "Something of a trial by fire."_

_As soon as the words were out, she wished she could sink through the floor. She turned - there was Ser Otto, sat by the table, the marks of hideous pain carved into his flesh. And Rylock - Rylock had removed her gauntlets, to better unfurl what looked like a list of supplies, and her arms looked like raw meat to the elbows. So this was the one, Rilian realised: the Templar who had pulled Ser Otto to safety after the mage's fireball had engulfed him. And - however much the woman seemed to disapprove of _her_ - it suddenly dawned on Rilian that she was the only Templar who was actually visiting Ser Otto: going through the Order's business with him as though he were still a member._

_She blushed, face as red as her hair - but neither Ser Otto nor Rylock seemed put out. Did the grey, milky eyes and the keen dark ones even hold - understanding? This surprised Rilian. They were both knights, after all - the proud and the powerful. But Rylock must have once been the only girl recruit among a cadre of frustrated men - and she had seen the way Arl Urien's guards laughed at Ser Otto._

_"I would remind you of Transfigurations, verse 10," Rylock said crisply, "She should see fire and go towards Light."_

_"Yes!" Rilian blurted out, so delighted she felt a wide smile all but wrap itself round her face: "__The Veil holds no uncertainty for her, and she shall know no fear of death - for the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword." You know: that reminds me of something I thought, staring up at the night sky when I should have been concentrating on the crates - that the stars are like windows to the Golden City. That the locked gates may forever be beyond us - but they leave something in our hand we wouldn't have had if we hadn't reached for them. That we can travel forever towards Light becoming - what we can never be…"_

Wynne was beginning to cast - small tongues of flame shooting upward from raised fingertips. The heat and scent of burning mingled with the heavy, damp loam of mud and decay. Rilian saw Rylock grit her teeth and start forward, standing beside the caster. Small beads of sweat stood out on her clenched jawline. Was it the desire that Wynne should not have everything her own way? Or the belief that only the Chant could transmute a thing of ugliness and pain and destruction to light and truth and beauty? Or simply the knowledge that her men deserved her prayers? Rilian wasn't sure. She felt her own throat closing up - remembered how it had been after her mother died: how the tears had balled into one huge fist that settled painfully at the back of her throat, allowing no food to pass, no words to pass. You must cry, the strangers - Aunt Elva, Cousin Iona, Dilwyn - had commanded. You must eat a little, talk, cry. But she had looked into their smug, complacent faces, their glittering avid eyes, their gossiping mouths, and the ball in her throat only thickened. Before the Templars took her away, Mother had looked like a waxen doll - a stranger with her beauty fixed on her face - eyes that would never see again - a smile that had never been hers.

"Do not remember her like this," Mother Boann had said.

She also told me that when I sing the Chant, I pray twice - but I can't lift up my voice or I'll choke on my own tears...what's that - a hand on my shoulder? Maker! _Loghain's _hand? Oh Maker - don't do that - you're only making it worse...and there they are. The tears... Lost in the blurred sight of the muddy ground and the rivulets of rain, Rilian sought to hide them.

Wynne had cast aside her protective cloak and hood - now soiled beyond repair. Her blue Enchanter's robe glimmered in the half-light. The power she called sucked the air towards her, as if she were the eye of a storm. Eyes as blue as her healing power crackled with anger. Her hair, loose from its bun, framed her taut face like white fire. Long elegant fingers jabbed like accusing points at the rain-washed, luminous sky, as though she blamed the Maker personally. A strange, fiercely-eager expression shone on pale, sweat-gleaming skin. She spoke, soft, well-modulated voice rising and falling in the strange, spidery language of magic. Beside her, Rylock stood, half-guarding, half-supporting the mage. She stood straight as the soldier she was: still in heavy armour, though Rilian knew the body beneath must feel like molten lead poured into an iron exoskeleton. She herself could barely keep upright, and she was wearing leggings and tunic. She was also half Rylock's age. Rylock was impassive, dark eyes bright with sombre conviction and bleak loss. When she gestured with one gauntleted fist to her chest - the standard way the Chantry began its prayers - it seemed to Rilian more as though she were trying to push her own feelings back inside. She did not sing - spoke the words as a soldier would: in low, precise tones, with clipped enunciation:

…_The Light shall lead them safely  
Through the paths of this world, and into the next.  
For they who trust in the Maker, fire is their water.  
As the moth sees light and goes toward flame,  
They shall see fire and go towards Light…_

The tent was illuminated by a nimbus of white light: tongues of flame that balled, billowed upward, shot towards the roiling sky. The shimmering curtain of rain glistened like seeds of light, scorched before they reached the earth. The death-shroud of sackcloth shrivelled like corpse-rags, leaving only the framework standing, like the bones of some giant creature. Then it, too, was consumed by the blaze, burning like a rage demon with misshapen fingers clawing the air. At last the entire structure collapsed inward, white-covered bodies ignited like stars. Through it all, Wynne seemed serene, at peace: her eyes reflected the flames like blue suns, her queenly profile glistened with sweat, her breaths came fast and shallow. And there was a look of ecstasy on her face; of exultation...

…_The Veil holds no uncertainty for them,  
And they shall know no fear of death, for the Maker  
Shall be their beacon and their shield, their foundation and their sword…_

Rylock finished her prayer, saluted the dead, then turned, in silence. Wynne closed her eyes. Life and strength seemed to drain from her like blood from a wound - and Rilian remembered Wynne's secret with a cold little chill of fear: how the strength of her Spirit of Faith was given for a time only - that Wynne's lifespan was running out like the sands of an hourglass. _Maker, don't let it be now, please. I couldn't bear it... _Wynne stared at them without recognition. In her eyes was a look of ancient sorrow: the sorrow of one who has been permitted to enter a realm of lambent, perilous beauty and who now finds herself, once more, cast down into the grey rainswept world.

Rylock supported her, one arm across Wynne's shoulders. Rilian felt the tears make dirty tracks across her face - but she was far past embarrassment.

"That was beautiful," she said softly, "Thank you. Both of you."

Rylock looked startled. "You would have done it better," she said gruffly. Rilian blinked - stared at her - and saw a wisp of childhood inadequacy: residual, utterly incongruous. Her mother's death and all that had followed had shown Rilian how unimportant were mere grace and golden voice - yet here was Rylock, who had pulled Ser Otto from the fire and saved Rilian from the Fade demon, sheepish because Rilian possessed a knack that she did not!

"These men were soldiers." Her voice broke a little - but when she continued it was quite steady. "It was better your way."

Rylock stared at her in a gratitude not quite aware of itself. Rilian smiled at her - at them all. "I think the four of us have earned a drink. I have some Ovaltine in my tent..."

Wynne raised her head from where she had been resting on Rylock's shoulder. Rilian saw with vast relief that some of her acerbic bite had come back. "Ovaltine? I want brandy, dammit!"

Rilian snorted - a sound half-way between a laugh and a sob. "Then you shall have brandy! Loghain, will you do the honours..."

"Certainly, Warden. I have a twenty-year-old Antivan in my tent..."

"Goodnight, Warden," Rylock said, very decidedly, "Mage - Teyrn. I shall see you in the morning." But Rilian thought she looked a little wistful.

She reached upward and squeezed Rylock's armoured shoulders in a barroom embrace. "Now, don't be foolish, Knight Commander. You know perfectly well that what you need is...to discuss tomorrow's strategy with the Teyrn. Isn't that right, Loghain?"

"Indeed," Loghain replied, catching on, "This battle was only the beginning. I wish to share with you my plan to trap the darkspawn between Ostagar and Redcliffe."

Rilian saw Rylock wavering...as if that were not enough, Wynne chose that moment to fix the Templar with a faintly challenging stare. "What's the matter, Ellen?" she asked - using the first name Rilian had never heard before, "Afraid you might enjoy it?"

Rylock frowned, needled. "Very well," she said curtly.

"Hah!" Rilian blurted out exultantly, patting Rylock on the back. "Brandy and company are much better for you than the rug and the drug."

Rilian blushed faintly. She recalled Ser Otto referring to the sacred ritual as "drinking the light-to-be" and had thought it a wonderful affirmation of faith. She felt guilty for making fun of such a private and precious thing - but in truth she just didn't feel comfortable saying anything serious. She was too pleased Rylock was coming - and too afraid that to show it would cause her to realise what she was doing and back off. As it was the Templar couldn't do that without appearing petulant.

Rylock took the flippant reference with admirable restraint, though unable to help an annoyed grimace and slight glance heavenward.

"Now, now, Warden," Loghain interjected mildly, "What happened to "polite"?"

"I think the darkspawn took my manners."

"Humph. There was nothing else worth taking." The low growl held the note of familiar banter, worn down to comfort. Rilian heard herself giggle. She didn't know where the sudden levity had come from, but she knew it hid something fearful. The four made their way southward, towards the main camp, encircled by the glimmering arc of the Drakon River. Droplets created a shimmer of varied blacknesses that opened like greedy little mouths, expanded, then collapsed to nothingness. The rain was a driving presence with them. It seemed to press on Rilian's brain, insisting on something: much like the Song was an insistent, constant murmur. _No longer music but a state through which the world is filtered - because music stops..._

The rain-washed night sky was a heavy, oppressive purple, like a mottled bruise. The array of tents formed a patchwork of squat, inky icebergs against the grey frozen-looking river. Rilian was so exhausted the landscape took on a dreamlike quality. Her thoughts seemed to emanate from her tenuous reflection floating like a ghost upon the water. She felt as though every bone in her body were an aching tooth. Her head was a drumbeat of pain; her eyes burned. Something dark suddenly winged close to her head. She looked around, and at the corners of her vision every time was movement she couldn't catch. The night was alive with the afterimages of battle, narrowing around her like the tightening of a noose. The residue of horror still crept upon her bones.

The main camp was a series of fires that shone like squat little glittering blisters: smouldering through the rain in sullen defiance. Gaggles of soldiers were huddled round each one: drinking, talking, laughing - hysterical with delight and relief that they were still alive, untainted, whole. Leliana's clear, pure grace notes soared toward the upper end of her range. Rilian seized on the beauty as the only thing that drove the Song from the edges of her mind. But the words themselves unsettled her. Leliana was singing about an Elven hero who had faced the Hurlock General toe-to-toe, with no mention of Loghain's strategies or Nathaniel's arrow. What bothered Rilian was that she liked it that way. She felt herself straighten. The cheers of the men were wine to her numbed soul - the rumble of voices, drunken laughter and yowl of fighting cats were the sounds of home.

Loghain's tent was a sturdy, squat square, made of thick yellow hide. He pushed the flap open, followed by Wynne. Rylock struggled with the straps of her soiled armour and Rilian stayed to help, her dextrous lute-playing fingers working at the straps of the Templar armour with the precision of familiarity. She could tell this surprised Rylock - as Elves were not permitted in the Chantry, where would she have learned? After she had met Ser Otto, she _had_ day-dreamed about becoming a Templar - until Shianni had squashed the fantasy by snorting that if Rilian truly wanted to be a Chantry running-dog, she would happily marry Nelaros herself.

"I used to do this for Alistair," Rilian said wistfully. "It always lead to - something else..."

As if the words were a formula opening some sealed chamber in her brain, the dark grief and yearning opened like a chasm to swallow her whole. A flood of memories: Alistair's bright gaze and strong face sweet as birdsong - the sunlit humour of his golden eyes - the way all his feelings played about his skin like light on water. The warmth and strength of him - the clumsy exuberance that somehow translated to assurance when he fought beside her - or gentleness when he took her in his arms. His warmth and his breath; his smell of sage soap and leather and cheese...

_Why_ did I say that? she wailed silently. Now she'll think Alistair broke his vows, when he never - we never...I wish we had. I wish I'd given him that - why did I act like we had all the time in the world? So worried about doing things rightly - about betraying Nelaros' memory - about what my folk would think of me. So worried he'd treat me like his father treated that poor servant - unless I made him marry me first. Did I, in my heart of hearts, need to test him?

_Elven woman. Human man._ Pounding in her head.

Suddenly, all her body's weeks without Alistair's touch expressed themselves like a chill all over the surface of her skin.

I should have given him that. Should have given everything. Only - if it hurts _worse _to lose a lover...

I had to side against him. Anora showed me that - showed me the necessity. But he will go into battle thinking I betrayed him. And he - the rumours - that night in camp. The story about him and Morrigan - that _he_ betrayed me...

For one terrible moment, Rilian hated Anora and Morrigan as she had never hated any other women.

Rylock's thin mouth was pinched in disapproval: whether at the idea of Alistair breaking his vows or the attempt at girl-talk Rilian wasn't certain. Dark eyes impassive and tone leaden, she said dourly,

"It won't this time."

Rylock's words popped the membrane of grief and yearning. Rilian's dark, mournful mood vanished like a soap-bubble. She stared at the Templar in astonishment, mouth rounding to a perfect "o" and eyes wide. A startled giggle escaped her. "A joke? _You_ - joking?"

"Certainly not."

"Hah! You can't fool me. Now I know there's someone hiding inside that statue: someone as sarcastic as Loghain..." Still chortling, Rilian removed pauldrons, vambraces, breastplate, the purple skirt that Alistair had claimed was to outdo the sartorial elegance of mages, hauberk and sabatons. Rylock's dark, plain tunic, trousers and boots were close-fitting about her thin, gracile form: all sharp angles and sinewy muscles - no curve, no grace, no yielding. Rilian pushed open the tent flap and the two headed inside towards the enshrouding warmth.

A faint tendril of firelight snaked in through the opened flap and limed Loghain's broad shoulders in a rust-coloured glow. Rilian could just make him out: moving through the thick darkness as precisely and unerringly as he had cleaved the chaos of battle. The gnarled hands were steady as though wielding a sword, or tracing maps, as he struck flint and tinder and lit the small brazier beside the shadowy bulk of his desk.

The light made a warm friendly glow like rich yellow honey. It blazed outward, reflecting off angles and smooth surfaces to form a glittering golden web of light. And everywhere it touched took on meaning for Rilian: decoded shapes leapt from homogenous darkness. A cabinet - writing table - bedroll - three chairs...

Along the far side was a wooden screen, showcasing a large collection of maps. Loghain lit another candle upon the desk - and the two sources of light rippled and collided like wave forms, creating an explosion of living light and shadow that played about the mellow parchment, waking dotted roads and trees and fortresses to life. Enchanted, Rilian stopped and stared - and recalled an old fancy of hers in which the "Botanist's Map Of Thedas" Ser Otto had given her was really a window to another world. She had felt as if she could step inside it and explore...

_In a way, I did - but in my dream I always came home, and I know I'll never see home again. But it's as the Hahren always says - when we lose a family member to the Circle; when I gave myself up - some of us have to lose home so the rest may keep it..._

Delighted, she saw that Loghain had put that very familiar map up, in pride of place - for a moment, she was transported home again: standing in front of it, dreaming, while the familiar smells of sewage and dead rat snaked through the warm richness of her father's baking.

"Oooh - you put up the map I gave you!" she exclaimed, "The copy I made of the Circle Tower's "Botanist's Map of Thedas". I still have the original - over my bed at home. Ser Otto bought it for me."

Behind her, Rylock sniffed - the sound so reminiscent of Shianni it completed the picture of home. "He would do better to buy you a copy of the Chant. Perhaps then you would stop misquoting the Canticles."

Rilian giggled. "Nah - I'm sure the Maker doesn't mind me adding my own touches. Otherwise he'd have made me a Chanter and not a storyteller. Besides, I already own the illustrated version. I'll lend it to you sometime..."

Loghain opened the mahogany cabinet to reveal a venerable-looking bottle of a familiar amber-coloured liquid. Rilian gazed at it in disfavour and wrinkled her nose. Memories of the Orlesian brandy kept in Arl Bryland's cellars and skimmed by Cyrion - who held the position of Head Chef - rose up. Her father and Garn Brosca - the Dwarven supervisor Rilian had nicknamed "The Dockfather"- had had a mutually beneficial arrangement, with Rilian perfectly-placed to act as go-between. It had seemed to the teenage Rilian an enormous injustice that her father wouldn't even let her taste the stuff. One night she and Soris had decided to rectify that. The morning after had cured her forever of the desire to sample brandy. She paled at the memory of lying in bed, unable to get up, while the world tilted and swayed on a silent demonic sea. Bad enough if she had spun sideways - but no, she had felt as though her head were sinking backwards, her legs up and over, as though she were strapped to the giant wheel in Punishment Square, playing what Arl Urien's guards termed "roulette with the Maker."

"I can't drink that," she blurted.

"Why not?" Loghain growled.

"My insides."

"I didn't know you were such a delicate flower, Warden," Loghain muttered, "One wonders how you survived the Joining."

Rilian scowled. Bad enough that Loghain had wrested most of the Wardens' secrets from Riordan - to have him cast it up at her added insult to injury. He met her glare with an infuriating smirk. With as much dignity as she could muster, she spun on her heel and raced outside:

"Back in a minute!"

Outside, the cold, water-loud night embraced her. The chilled, swirling rain was gilded with firelight and carried voices and laughter. The dark was alive, and so thick she felt she could wash her hands in it. She squinted into the rain-lashed distance, heading for the tent she shared with Shianni. Rilian didn't know how it was that Shianni, who was far less experienced a traveller than she, had got the knack of putting it up within a day, while she still struggled with the pegs.

Rilian and Shianni had moved up in the world: after the battle a group of her soldiers had presented her with the enormous tent, made of gold cloth and studded with ornamentation. It was Rilian's pride and joy: large enough for their two cots, several large chests, Arl Eamon's delicate Orlesian chair that she liked so much, a weapon rack and a wardrobe. Rilian knew Shianni was inside: the candles she had lit turned the gold cloth to a beacon of orange-yellow luminosity. Rilian pushed aside the cunningly-woven tent flap. She felt her face blossom into a wide, delighted smile - then all at once a chill like a bucket of ice swept her from head to foot. The smile warped to a rictus of horror and her voice emerged in a mouse-like squeak:

"I told you not to touch it!"

Shianni was washing the red armour Rilian had discarded - still stained with darkspawn blood.

"Oh, Rilian!" Shianni clucked, with the swift shake of her head that meant friendliness as well as exasperation, "Credit me with some sense." She raised her hands from the bucket - they were garbed in elbow-high protective gloves. Light as silk and tougher than bullhide, the Dalish leather was treated with the same waterproof wax as the aravel sails. Intricate enchantments also protected the wearer from fire and magic.

Rilian breathed out slowly, relief turning her body to a boneless sack of blood. "You still shouldn't have..."

"Don't be silly," Shianni said, amber eyes grave, "I know where you were tonight. I'm just thankful Keeper Marethari, Keeper Lanaya and Keeper Ilrae performed _that_ duty, for us."

_For us_...Rilian thought, a tendril of wistful sadness snaking through exhaustion. She didn't know whether it was at the Dalish refusal to share hospital quarters with the rest of the army - or at Shianni's casual use of a word that excluded her. Shianni's weeks among the Dalish had changed her. Her face was leaner and harder than Rilian remembered. There was pride in her bearing - a tight muscular control of her body - she had grown into the supple leather armour. Her composite shortbow - made of horn, ironbark and sinew - lay like a gleaming arc upon the weapon rack. But Shianni's smile erased the months between them - brought Rilian back home:

"Besides, this stuff's no worse than what I used to have to bleach from shem underwear..."

Rilian giggled, then hunted through the enormous pile of her own mess: discarded clothes, maps, a hunk of cheese...a collection of impressionist paintings that scalded her throat with sudden tears, drew her blurred vision toward the sword that glittered beside Shianni's bow, sleek and iridescent.

_I will bring you home, my friend...somehow. Time is running out for me - but Zevran told me he was my man, without reservation. And he and Isabella have a ship..._

She swallowed determinedly, then found what she had been looking for: the big bottle of raspberry-flavoured cider she had been saving, and her lute. Shianni raised an eyebrow.

"You're going to share _that _with that shem bastard?"

"He was there," Rilian said simply, "In the tent. So were Wynne and Knight-Commander Rylock." _And no-one can ever come as near to me, because they know the things I know..._

Shianni cocked her head: questioning, seeking, not quite understanding. At last, hesitantly, she said:

"I will be gone the next few hours. The Dalish are holding a...ceremony...for those of us who became adults today. I...I thought Vaughan had stolen that from me - but the Dalish judge adulthood by a hunter's first kill, not by marriage and children. And Cale does not think me ruined. But - I don't forget the values we grew up with. I intend to be back in our tent by midnight. I expect the same of you."

Gently, Rilian reached out, took her cousin's shoulders. She rested her forehead against Shianni's, leaning into the support of her: the unyielding rock of her childhood.

"I will be back by midnight," she promised softly, "I'll not forget my honour, or where I come from. I need you for that. You hold me in place."

Rilian whirled, spun away into the night, bottle and lute in hand and tent-flap billowing behind her. She felt oddly weightless - a ship cast off from moorings, heading from one port to another. Back in Loghain's tent, Rilian was not surprised to see the three middle-aged folk had appropriated the chairs - she sank down, cross-legged, onto the floor. Wynne laid a gentle hand across her shoulders.

Rilian poured the sparkling pink liquid into her glass and offered it to the others. Everyone shook their heads. They seemed to be carefully not looking at each other - but Rylock faced her directly, and said, with an odd hesitancy: "Warden - that is not champagne. It's cider - flavoured with sugar and berries. If some unscrupulous Denerim merchant has lied to you, you should report him."

Rilian shook her head. "I know what it is," she said proudly, "My friend Alarith makes it back home. It's a far cry from the cider we used to drink at the docks. That stuff could strip paint. My tastes have matured since then." To prove the point, she took a delicate sip, little finger cocked.

Rylock only nodded: face so devoid of expression Rilian could have sworn she were one of Caridin's golems. The knight refused to look at either Loghain or Wynne. Loghain and Wynne were glancing at each other, smiling... Rilian shrugged and grinned, not worried. If shems had no taste for the finer things in life, that was their loss.

"It's certainly better than _that_ stuff," she added, pointing an accusing finger at the brandy bottle as though it had personally offended her. "That brandy makes me sad."

"Sad? How so?" Loghain challenged.

"How long as it taken to reach its present state?"

"Twenty years."

Rilian nodded heavily. "Twenty years of care, of nurturing, of growth - gone in a few moments. Don't you think that is sad?" _For within the week, either Alistair or I will be gone..._

_No!_ _Within the week, Alistair will be Warden-Commander. Riordan will cross the border and convince Guillaume Caron to rally his men. _I _will die - and, oh Maker, it is so hard to die! Of all the things we must endure, this must surely be the hardest..._

_I see Mother: stump like a piece of meat held up to the light. Her face is flushed with anger and fever; her eyes are glittering febrile blisters. "Listen to them, Cyrion. Look at them flowering out into the world! Beauties, both. For what? So life can unravel them to suit its purpose. Girls, take your lesson from me. This lesson: of how life twists us so we put value into worthless things. Puts beauty before us to blind us to what beauty really is. I spent my beauty as a shem spends money. Learn my lesson - or by the time you learn that beauty is just a shell to hide behind, life destroys even that shell leaving you with nothing. Do you hear? Do you see? Nothing!"_

Loghain looked suddenly old and tired. But he only snorted and said: "Nonsense. You're not fit to drink yet."

At once, the dark nest of memories vanished in a fit of feminine pique. Loghain was about as far from her ideal of attractiveness as it was possible to be: a scarred hulk of muscle and sinew old enough to be her father. But her pride was stung by the idea that the disinterest was entirely mutual.

"You're just too old to appreciate me!" she shot back.

Loghain grunted in amusement and poured himself another glass. When he moved to refill Rylock's the Templar managed only a half-heated protest, which he ignored. He poured Wynne another tumbler-full and Wynne knocked it back with practiced ease. The candlelight played about the glasses, turning them to darkly-sparkling golden jewels. It was like shining oil on Loghain's cheekbones. There was a small scar across the right. The smoother skin there caught the light better, glittered jewel-like. Rylock's lanky form still struggled to maintain the Templar posture: jutting shoulderblades, spine like dragonbone, straight knees. Her thin, hard-muscled forearms were no longer red, like meat, but the skin looked strange: a mass of silvery striations, in places puckered, in places satin. Dirty leather bindings around the palms that would no longer callus. Raw patches showed where skin had rubbed against gauntlets - a sudden inspiration shook her. _I'll make off with one of her gauntlets when she's not looking and ask Master Varathorn to make gloves to fit_... Delighted, Rilian nearly clapped her hands. Loghain had the map to remember her by - and she was just waiting for the right time to present Wynne with the book hidden in her pack: "Potions, Tinctures and Spicy Sauces". Wynne was sitting with her usual elegance. Her hair, loose from its bun, was pale and fine as an angel's. _Hair like light - eyes deep as an ocean._

Loghain spread the map across the desk and began to talk them through the next stage of the campaign. The callused, slightly curved fingers of his right hand moved over outlined ridges, woods and valleys. The palm of his left, dry and hard as old tree bark, rested on the edge of the parchment. Rilian squinted, trying to focus through blurred eyes upon the green of hills and valleys, purple mountains, grey trade routes and cities...upon the dark mass that blotched the beauty like ink. Now that they had defeated one mass of darkspawn, Loghain intended the army to go to ground at Ostagar. They would reach the fortress in under a week.

"Our intelligence reports a second, larger mass of darkspawn directly south of Lake Calenhad. Our present forces are too depleted to engage them in the open. But if the forces of the Bastard Prince at Redcliffe can drive them toward us, we can break them upon the rock of Ostagar." A flicker of pain crossed the hawk features, banished in an instant.

"As should have been done before," Wynne stated.

_He has enough to bear - don't add to it. I'll never forget the moment before the charge, wondering if Loghain's signal would come too late...__ All we should do is thank the Maker we weren't in his shoes. But then: none of us were in yours. I was rescued like a storybook hero - Loghain quit the field. We never had to see the charnel-pit, or soothe those dying screams..._

Rilian glanced at Rylock's quiet face, carefully blank, and read the shame behind the inward-looking dark eyes: _I cannot judge - I did not even retreat._

_We'll never know why the King wanted the Templars to remain in Denerim - if there are answers, they can only be with his correspondence - but I know Rylock regrets it to this day. Her childhood friend, my mentor, dead at Ostagar; Ser Bryant dead at Lothering. In the Circle Tower, when Greagoir and Irving were arguing like old men at a beer-drink, I used that to gain her service._

Rilian remembered Rylock's vow: "When you have mustered your armies, send word to Denerim; I will be there." And she remembered the day she kept it: the day after Anora had routed Arl Eamon, when the Amaranthine forces and Revered Mother Leanna came to Denerim for the Queen's final War Council. The Revered Mother - who, Anora had told her, would likely be named Grand Cleric by the Divine after the deaths of Grand Cleric Odila and Mother Boann at Ostagar - had a face rich and full as Amaranthine Chantry. Smooth as cream and tougher than bullhide. She had looked at Rylock in silent, dire challenge, and the message in the stone-grey, merciless eyes had demanded submission: one will to another. This was irreversible confrontation, beyond theology. Rilian had looked on in fascinated horror at the quiet dynamics of it…

…_"Our aid to Ferelden has not been sanctioned by the Divine. I cannot give my blessing."_

_Rylock's plain gawky face was pale and pinched in the mute non-defiance Rilian had only ever seen in Elven servants; dark eyes that did not expect mercy, bright with sombre conviction and bleak pride. The eyes that would not recant._

_"Your Reverence: Darkspawn are creatures spawned from the Black City, created by the foulest of Blood Magic. Surely to do nothing would be as great a sin as to spare apostates and maleficarum."_

_"The Chantry determines what's sin and what isn't. When I'm Grand Cleric, I'll absolve you."_

_Rylock's jaw jutted. Behind her taut face and tough keen eyes, the lamp of faith flared high; one saw the light as a dazzling glint through a chink. "The Maker determines."_

_The Revered Mother spared her one glance of knifing enmity. Quietly composed, Rylock bowed and left the chamber. Her eyes were stern, shaded, marked by layers of privacy and restraint - but Rilian could see right inside them to the core of faith that bubbled up fountain-like within, shy and austerely bright. Her spartan face was plain as the bare, shingled walls of Rilian's own home - furnished so functionally that any double-dealing would have shown through like patches of damp - incapable of dishonesty. Rilian wanted to stand up and cheer for her. Instead, she cursed the perverse streak that made her say the most flippant things at the worst of times. She leaned towards her and whispered, "Well, if you're wrong, you'll at least be the bravest Templar in the Black City"…_

She doubted Rylock had appreciated that - any more than she had appreciated it when she had joined the Wardens' army at the Hafter River, only to discover that Rilian had smuggled Jowan from Templar justice. Rilian knew that if anyone other than Ser Otto had been guarding him, Rylock would simply have shouldered him aside and arrested Jowan. She was sure Rylock had cursed her own weakness - her refusal to humiliate Ser Otto by using his blindness against him. She was also sure Rylock would go after Jowan as soon as she and Ser Otto were not there to protect him.

_I know that Loghain and Rylock mean the best in the worst they do. Only - how far do good intentions excuse actions? Rylock murdered a fourteen-year-old boy who just wanted to go home - Loghain sent my people to be raped and used and worked to death. I remember Wynne, the day we stood before the Anvil: "The right of a single innocent soul has to stand against the "greater good" of billions - or we have made no progress in the last Age, and won't in the next."_

_I've seen Wynne pour out her own strength to save the lives of others_. _Who can question such power? Who can say it isn't greater than swords and arrows? To take life is so easy - the freeing of a bird from a flimsy, ugly cage. To create happiness, to create intelligence, to give meaning - that's power. I'll never bear a child - but I will give life in the only way I can. I'll save Jowan's. Somehow, I'm going to get him across the border, to join the Wardens of Montsimmard. Loghain will call it treason - Rylock will call it aiding a maleficar. And I'm sorry for that, because they truly are my friends. But I must do what I believe is right…_

"Madam, I'm aware…"

Wynne held up a hand for silence. It fluttered in the dimness like a blind, white cave-creature. Long fingers adept at casting spells seemed to undulate. Shadows accentuated her high, sharp cheek-bones, intense, seeking eyes, the furrows of thought upon her forehead. At last, indefinably as a change in the weather, her features softened.

"You took a gamble, and you lost. Had things turned out differently you might have been a hero. Win the next battle for us, and you will be. The long run can be very long."

Bitterness warped Loghain's grin, made it cruel. "So I'm to be forgiven and loved if I win battles, and cursed if I lose?"

Wynne shrugged, unconcerned. "Mages have lived with that knowledge for generations. That's something we have in common, Loghain Mac Tir."

Loghain's low, dark chuckle acknowledged the point.

_Mages, soldiers, Templars and Wardens - all tools of war. Well, one must be a slave to something in this kind of world; no-one is free. Except for a few brief moments now and then, when the soul slips over into eternity. All the rest of our years we serve the Circle, Ferelden, the Chantry, the Wardens: and right now, carrying the blood of the dragon of slaves inside me, preparing to die against the debased dragon of beauty - holiness torn apart and shamed - I think the latter is the hardest bondage of all…_

But Rilian could not express her thoughts - had to button her mouth like a purse lest her plans for Jowan come tumbling out. Drinking always turned her mouth - overactive at the best of times - into a flapping torrent of gossip. The only safe strategy was to say absolutely nothing. Instead she idly plucked the strings of her lute - and drank, and played. The song was her goodbye, though the others did not know it:

_Farewell, farewell, to you who would hear_

_You lonely travellers all_

_The cold north wind shall blow again_

_The winding road does call_

_And will you never return to see_

_Your bruised and beaten sons?_

_Oh I would, I would, if welcome I were_

_For they love me, every one_

_And will you never cut the cloth_

_Or drink the light-to-be?_

_And can you never swear a year_

_To anyone of we?_

_No, I will never cut the cloth_

_Or drink the light-to-be_

_But I'll swear a year to one who lies_

_Asleep alongside of me_

_Farewell, farewell…_

The last silvery notes shimmered and sliced through the air like the patter of rain outside. The entire tent had taken on a dreamlike quality: it seemed filled with a haze of warmth and light that blurred shadowy corners to a series of soft impressions. Everything was unreal and strange as her Fade dream had been. Her limbs felt odd - not connected to her brain. Would they behave better if she spoke to them? Rilian watched as the empty cider bottle suddenly crashed to the floor and rolled across the tent. She stared at it as though it held the answer to her most important question. Loghain's table and chairs seemed to be moving - leaping and dancing like the guests at her wedding day…Nelaros…

Rilian sank backward on something warm and soft…things looked much steadier from this position: much safer than among all that leaping furniture. She loved Loghain, Wynne and Rylock better than anyone in the whole world - she would have told them so, had there not suddenly and unaccountably been six of them sitting there instead of just three.

"I love you all," she said instead, "I love you desperately - but now I must sleep..."

"Not on my bed, you don't," Loghain growled - but his voice came from very far away. Rilian stuck one leg in the air and wrestled unsuccessfully with her boot. Always, it eluded her...

"Would you mind helping me out here?"

"That's a very good question," said Loghain seriously, dropping his chin into his hands. "I'm glad you asked it. The answer, of course, is: Yes! I would mind."

Rilian let the leg drop and stuck out her lower lip. "Well that's just rude." She rolled pointedly away from him, flung her arms around her head and drew her knees up to her chest, to show him what she thought of him…

…It seemed she closed her eyes only for a moment. The next thing she knew she was lying in darkness, all the candles burned to nubs. A silvery edge of moonlight peeked through a gap in the tent to gild her surroundings in silver-white luminosity. There was a rustle of cloth. A hulking shadow entered the tent, backlit by a predawn sky that gleamed like a great silver lake. Rilian gazed up blearily.

"You've occupied my space for quite long enough," Loghain told her briskly, "Time to get back to your own tent, or the men will never believe that, of the four of us, you were the only one to sleep the sleep of the innocent and just." Loghain's clothes were drenched, his hair a wet grey-and-black curtain. He smelled of sweat and leather and musk.

Rilian blinked - suddenly feeling guilty. "I'm sorry I ruined the party by falling asleep." Rilian, like most twenty-year-olds, could not conceive of a group of middle-aged folk enjoying themselves on their own.

For some reason this seemed to amuse Loghain. "Oh - we managed tolerably well without you. Rylock had her prayer beads - she managed to get through the entire Chant before returning to her tent. Wynne had her knitting. And I decided to give the Ovaltine a try. Fortunately, I had my chamberpot nearby - the waterworks no longer being what they were."

Rilian knew something was off about this explanation - but couldn't for the life of her work out what. "Sometimes you say the strangest things."

"An occasional weakness," Loghain admitted ruefully, "You may put it down to my advancing age. Now - up!"

Rilian groaned. She now had a Dwarven marching band to accompany the Song that swelled in her head like a choir. Her mouth tasted like the inside of her backpack, after she had left Alistair's cheese in there for over a month. She struggled to her feet, blanket still draped over her shoulders, and would have pitched forward had Loghain not caught her.

With Loghain steering she managed to make unsteady progress out of his tent towards her own. The rain had stopped - her boots slithered and squeaked over wet grass like a pair of mice. The camp was just waking to life - Rilian careered past a Chantry sister carrying a pail of water. Loghain managed a stunningly graceful rescue of balance and dignity.

She made it to the side of her tent without vomiting. Then the lurid golden glow stabbed her eyes with a queasy explosion of nausea.

"That's it, Warden - show the men what you think of this overblown monstrosity. Give it another one for luck - but not on my boots."

Rilian did as she was bid and, chuckling, Loghain steered her inside…

…Straight into the malevolent, seeking point of Shianni's arrowhead.

"Whoa!" Rilian flared in shock, arms windmilling frantically. "Shianni - what!"

Amber eyes flicked over her body - Shianni's taut, desperate check that Rilian was physically unharmed. But her aim never waved - the needle-sharp point remained focused unerringly on Loghain's heart. Candlelight turned it to the notched fang of a snake, sensing human warmth and form. It called out with a hungry gleam.

Loghain met Shianni's acid glare and lethal arrow with inhuman composure. "I understand justice is owed for my involvement in slave-trade. The Chantry, Bann Sighard - and your own Bann, Valendrian - will raise the issue at the next Landsmeet. Until then, I have a war to win - and, quite frankly, I don't have to answer to you."

Shianni's mouth twisted. "You're absolutely right, shem - on the matter of your slave-trading, you don't have to answer to me. You'll get off with a human wrist-slapping - we don't expect justice. My cousin's honour, however, is a separate issue." Unable to rely on size or physical appearance for intimidation, Shianni tightened the bowstring: bone-hard, lethal fingers as steady as her eyes.

Rilian's throat was suddenly dry, achingly tight. "I'm so sorry I didn't come back in time! I got drunk and fell asleep. But I never...he never...he says I'm not fit to drink yet. And anyway - he's old!"

"Thank you, Warden, for that touching defence." Loghain regarded Shianni with a thin smile, and managed to soften the mood without belittling: "You've made it impossible for me to say anything that sounds sincere, but I'm still going to try. In days to come, I may ask your cousin's life - but I will never take her honour. As for you, young lady, the Warden is lucky to have you. People spend lifetimes searching for such loyalty and never finding it. At the Landsmeet, you may well get your justice - but until then I'll tolerate no threat to our victory. Remember that, and we'll both keep our lives free of arrows."

Loghain fell silent - and received from Shianni the look that accords grudging respect to a mortal enemy. He did not wait for her to lower the bow - turned away as if in unconcern and called over his shoulder:

"I'm calling a War Council in one hour, Warden!"

He left, and Rilian faced Shianni, looking at her as though she had never seen her before. The lambent eyes were familiar, as was the stance - a tigress defending her young; body thin and drawn and taut as a blade - the face pared down by graft and uncompromising pride. But...

"You're wearing the Vallaslin - the blood-writing. Oh, Shianni," Rilian whispered in hushed awe, "It's so beautiful!"

For Shianni had chosen the pattern that marked her adulthood, and the start of her new life among the Dalish - that reflected the face she wanted to wear. A very familiar design adorned her from the bridge of her nose to her forehead. The tracing of a tree blossomed out into myriad branches. But the pattern as a whole suggested something else - the places where skin had been left bare resembled nothing so much as the spread wings of a bird. It was the design Nelaros had created for Rilian's wedding ring - and that Shianni had woven into the scarlet-and-gold apron she had made for Rilian, so long ago.

"Winged vines - I can't think of anything more right," Rilian said softly, tears pricking her eyes. She looked at Shianni with an odd hesitancy - her cousin had blossomed into a woman before Rilian's eyes - had undergone a lonely rite and stood on a summit where she could not follow. "Did it - hurt?" she asked wonderingly.

"Humph," Shianni said gruffly, "Don't think your silver tongue will get you out of a scolding! I've never been so worried..."

Rilian hung her head. "I shouldn't have got so drunk," she said mournfully, "And I'm sorry I frightened you. But there wasn't a bit of real harm in sleeping in Loghain's tent..." Plaintively, she studied the warm familiarity of their tent and belongings, and the way the candlelight seemed to float on the air, pure and soft, reflecting in lucent swirls within Shianni's brilliant eyes.

"Oh, Rilian!" Shianni clucked as she headed purposefully to the weapon rack and reverently replaced the Dalish bow, "I put it to you: suppose you were a soldier following someone larger-than-life - a heroine, a symbol - and then she got involved in a sordid tryst with her own General and became the laughing-stock of the army? _Would_ you still follow such a one into battle, and trust her to keep you from death? Honest, now?"

Rilian stared hard at the glittering warmth of the brazier for long moments. "Noooo," she said slowly, "I told you before: sometimes I need the - symbol - of something holy, when the reality seems far away. I know such legends are beautiful lies - but they're true to life as it should be and that's a better truth than the other. Only - that's different. I wouldn't _know_ what it is to be a leader - that leaders are only mortal. That heroes have feet of clay."

"That's just the point, Ril. Other people _can't _know. So you have to keep up appearances. Now - you're going to show up at that War Council looking like Andraste reborn." Shianni took Rilian's hands - led her round the corner of the tent - and Rilian gave a little squeal of delight when she saw the tub that Shianni had filled to the brim with steaming water. A lump formed in Rilian's throat - it must have taken her hours to carry all that from the Drakon River - and countless pans heated at the fire.

She drew in a shuddering breath. The soft, homely glow of their tent, the glimmering angles of familiar objects, had never seemed more beautiful. Surroundings that had nothing to do with compromising situations or the prospect of an early death. She sprang forward and gave Shianni an impulsive hug. Taller than her cousin, Rilian had to crane her neck like an injured heron to rest her forehead against Shianni's. She felt the texture of skin and tattoos as both familiar and strange. The pattern of winged vines - done in green for life - was the most wonderful thing she had ever seen. She began to sing, softly, a ballad she made up on the spur of the moment:

_...Blackbird singing in the dead of night_

_Take these broken wings and learn to fly_

_All your life you've been only waiting_

_For this moment to arise..._

Shianni shook her head, bemused. "How do you do that?" she asked, a little wonderingly, "Find words for things?"

Rilian shook her head. "Not everything," she said softly.

Shianni gave her a little push backwards and shooed her towards the tub. As her cousin laid out her spotless Dragonbone armour and a change of underclothing, Rilian stripped off her rumpled, sweat-stained tunic, trousers and boots and sank into the deliciously inviting water with a shiver of delight, wiggling her toes.

"Now scold me, cousin," she giggled, "Scold me _hard_."

As Shianni bustled about making a very familiar drink, Rilian heard again the full tale of her misdeeds: from the time she had walked home with Ser Otto, to the brandy incident, right down to her evenings drinking rot-gut by old Timon's smelly lean-to. The memory of that home-brew made her stomach lurch. The confrontation between Loghain and Shianni had inflicted a fierce sobriety - but the thought of attending War Council in an hour broke her out in a cold sweat. Shianni returned to the tub - carrying a glass of thick yellowish-brown liquid. This was the Elven style of Ovaltine: a heavy syrup half-way between cream and butter, made with runny eggs mixed into a paste with rich malt and fine yellowish flour.

"If this doesn't get you sobered up for the War Council, nothing will." Shianni handed Rilian the glass. "Don't look at it - _don't_ smell it - just down it in one..."

* * *

_Song inspirations for this one are:_

_The Wounded: Metallica - One_

_They Shall See Fire: Daniel Lanois - The Maker_

_Ril's Ballad: Fairport Convention - Farewell, Farewell (used in the scene)_

_Oh, Maker, It Is So Hard To Die: Queen - The Show Must Go On_

_Shianni: The Beatles - Blackbird (quoted by Ril)_

* * *

_AN: I do apologize! Both for taking so long to get this chapter out, and for only managing to get as far as the morning after! I meant to include my version of RTO, Morrigan's Offer, and the night before the final battle but, as always, I underestimated the chapter length. So, Chapter 16: The Last Dance, and Chapter Seventeen: The Abyss, The Well Of All Souls, will follow shortly. _

_I'd like to thank my readers and reviewers: icey cold (Edina to my Patsy, BAMF writer and partner-in-crime!), analect (fellow Alienage fan and world-builder), Josie Lange, Tyanilth, Shakespira (the Evil Triplets! Responsible for Gene crossing over to the darkside of fanfic, for Ovaltine, Antivan brandy and "this tent gets burned, and everything in it"! Yes, ladies - I think the Teyrn will want a word...), Graffiti My Soul (I know I promised more Alistair this chapter - but as it grew to monstrous length I had to save those scenes for the next part! Rest assured, we will be seeing much of the final battle from his POV), Judy, Psyche Sinclair, Arsinoe de Blassenville, Enaid Aderyn, Naomis8329, Herebedragons66, Persephone Chiara, lisakodysam, mutive and JackOfBladesX. Sorry it's taken me so long to update – cross my heart I'll have the next one up within a week! :)_


	16. Chapter 16: Dwellers In The Crucible

_The outcome of the war is in our hands; the outcome of words is in the Council._

The Iliad.

The silver blade of dawn slit the grey cloud mass to create a horizon. All around the camp, the dark triangular tents resembled the fins of gathered sharks. Hard, glinting sparks of light limned them in silver. The searching light seemed to find chinks in Loghain's armour, brining on greater cold, as if it helped the wind find gaps in his defences to sneak through and dull his mind.

The thought brought a rush of hot blood and a quick thrill of increased awareness. The lack of sleep he'd had only served to invigorate him. The same could not be said for the Warden, he thought, with a grunt of amusement. When he'd left her - to the tender mercies of the fierce young cousin who'd tried to put an arrow through him - she had worn the pallor of a three-day old corpse. Eyelids like peeled shrimps and forehead glistening with pallid sweat told of a system still leaden with alcohol. Elves were notoriously light-weight.

To the north, the knoll from which the infantry had descended jutted into the opaque sky. The fringe of fir trees were a shadowy, abstract green darkness; the curve of the Drakon River encircled everything like a sickle blade. The smoke of yesterday's pyres formed a greasy lid that drifted sluggishly east. At the base of the hillside, the tent that had housed the dying was nothing but charred sticks that reared like skeletal fingers. A faint childhood memory brushed Loghain's mind - the village superstition that the bones of unquiet dead grew from the ground. An instant later, he scoffed at himself. The untainted wounded were housed to the north and west - many of those would recover, though they could not be moved for days. The Bannorn knights and infantry, the Templars and camp-followers, were all camped to the north and west of the battlefield - upon flat grass that rippled like purple waves. Dotted among the waves of grass and darkness, the rust-coloured glow of campfires budded into life. The largest fires formed a smouldering, triumphant barricade in front of a large white square of tent, girded by enormous barrels, and wagons carrying large sacks of grain. The warm, yeasty smell of hot mixed grain mash took Loghain's mind back to the days of the rebellion...he headed toward the tent, stomach growling - and was amused to see the Elven cook had adopted the standard of a giant mortar and pestle. Humph. Better that than the ostentatious golden ship chosen by the man's daughter.

As he headed closer, following his nose, his attention was caught by a ripple of activity to the north-east: a trio of squat, dark-crawling objects that lumbered towards them from the West Road. They were joined by a fourth - then a fifth. Loghain stared - then his breath caught in his throat. Five wagons: was that _all_? He had chosen men he trusted to keep the supply lines open - this, then, was all Denerim could spare. Hurrying forward, he saw that the old Elf had beaten him to it - the man's younger Elven assistant was shouting instructions to the handlers as if he had been born to it, calling quantities to the cook, who took them down with parchment, quill and ink in small neat strokes. The guard in charge of the wagons heaved himself from his perch and saluted the Teyrn - then cut his eyes to the Elves and back again with a helpless shrug, as if silently asking for an explanation of a world going by too fast for him. Loghain grunted. He wasn't entirely pleased to see the Warden's family assuming sole control of the army's supplies, well-knowing the Elven propensity for skimming off the top, but he supposed that was the price to be paid for efficiency. Better that than what the Dalish were doing, he thought sourly. Disdaining to camp alongside shems in open fields, the Dalish armies had melted back into the shelter of the forest of South Reach - and the game caught by those skilled archers was not being shared. The realisation that many of his own Night Elves had followed them had forced him to squash a wholly absurd pang of betrayal. But something had to be done - the army could not be allowed to fragment before the darkspawn were destroyed.

"There's something else, ser." The guard hurried towards him. Loghain recognised the ruddy, bearded face; the good-natured dark eyes. This was Captain Arvall - whom his daughter had trusted ever since that murky business at Arl Howe's estate. Since then she had elevated him to the status of her right-hand man. Not having reached the truth of that shady affair - and as reluctant to dig as he would have been to swim in a fetid pool - Loghain could only hope she was right. "Her Majesty tasked me to bring you this." The dun-coloured tube of parchment was precisely, neatly rolled. The royal seal winked like a jay in the dusty red light of dawn.

"Thank you," Loghain said curtly. "A man like you deserves something for his trouble. See me after." He turned on his heel; strode towards the squat dark mass of his tent.

Unerring fingers found flint, tinder and torch-bracket. The sullen yellow glow lit the parchment - he broke the seal and unrolled it carefully. A mess of squiggles crawled from left to right like so many black ants. Loghain's face softened with pride - an expression so few were allowed to see. His daughter had created the code and taught him; he only wished he had thought of such a thing during the rebellion. Painstakingly, he set about deciphering the message. Decoded meanings leapt from the varied blacknesses of arcs, fine lines, and dots:

_My dear father,_

_I send this with the last remaining supplies of Denerim's granaries. They will last approximately two weeks. Thanks to the alliance with the Warden, the darkspawn have not laid waste to our fertile crescent - but the campaign has deprived the fields of able-bodied men. I have called upon Bann Valendrian of the Alienage to help make up the shortfall - but he, with an astuteness I would admire under more favourable circumstances, has realised that his people are now valuable commodities and demanded wages equal to their human counterparts. I have accepted his terms - but it is money that must be taken from the war effort._

_Worse still: we have counted upon Lord Edelbrek's Amaranthine farmland - but news reaches me that Bann Channon Cousland, thought dead at Highever, has allied with Delilah Howe and Seneschal Varel, and taken over Vigil's Keep. Arl Thomas and Bann Nathaniel cannot learn of this, or they will desert. I am forced to negotiate with Cousland for supplies - after having already promised the Teynrir to the Howes. Any leverage that will gain me the upper hand will prove invaluable. The late Rendon Howe's accusations of treachery were made without proof - but I have always suspected that Arl Eamon was acting as Bryce Cousland's stalking horse in the matter of my husband's union with Celene. My agent, Erlina, denies all knowledge of such - and I believe her. Which points to the existence of at least one other agent, possibly in Denerim. Any correspondence to that effect might be found within my late husband's possessions._

_Without the produce of Alamar and Brandel's Reach, we would not last the winter. As it is, we will meet the campaign season in spring with almost nothing. Ferelden's navy - so tenderly built up by you and King Maric over the past thirty years, so lavishly paid for - sits idle and unmanned, all soldiers needed against the darkspawn. We would have to end the Blight within two weeks, and repel the Orlesians in a single decisive battle, to survive as a nation. As such is patently impossible, I would advise you to seek what terms with Orlais we can. As soon as possible - before our weakness becomes apparent._

_Anora_

Loghain was grateful for the solitude of his tent. His mind was too dangerously poised on the edge of fear to tolerate intrusion. The fury in him threatened to turn him into something like the pitiful, maddened, tainted soldiers they had sent to the Maker last night. The memory haunted him. He picked up the fireplace poker, stirred the blazing logs. The thick iron rod was as long as a man's leg, with a vicious-looking claw hook. In his right hand - the sword-hand whose fingers he could no longer completely straighten - it darted and twisted like a live thing. He jabbed the hook into a burnt log. Charcoal grated: a gritting, slithering sound. He drew the poker out of the fire, examining it as though the scars of its rough forging carried answers. Then, expressionless, he fed the parchment to the flames. The light lured the words to darkness like so many insects: inhaled them to consuming heat. When all were obliterated, Loghain replaced the poker and armoured himself - the steel that held flesh and bone and soul together; the sword that knew nothing about surrender - then left the tent. His quick, purposeful strides carried him towards the tents of Ferelden's nobles.

If anything, the sight of the camp was more disheartening than before. After the night's celebrations, and with Loghain and Cauthrien needed with the wounded, the officer he'd left in charge had not supervised the digging of the waste trenches adequately. The midden heap was far too close to the makeshift village of refugees. Leprous with patches of filth, it was currently inundated with squalling, scavenging vultures. Like angry puffs of dust, they rose and swirled at his approach. Cats slunk out of his way, prowling amid the wreckage. Scraggly wisps of hay littered the hard-packed ground in front of the supply carts. Several dispirited packhorses watched him. Hipbones rose from hindquarters as clearly defined as castle turrets. One neighed plaintively at him. Loghain looked away, strode towards Bann Ceorlic's guard and announced himself with blank detachment.

The thin, nervous man ushered him inside quickly. Bann Ceorlic appeared to be barricaded behind a huge ham, bowls of vegetables, and a massive tureen of steaming soup. He rose ponderously. Pale and flaccid, like a great quivering heap of poached egg whites. With one last draft from his tankard, he came round the table to greet his commander with great gusto. When he got to "brother Fereldan" Loghain decided he'd heard enough.

"Bann Ceorlic. I trust I find you well. I certainly find you very well-fed. I'm calling a War-Council in one hour." He turned smartly, regretting that he'd ever disapproved of Cyrion Tabris for skimming supplies. At least the Elves provided value for money. All Ceorlic had done during the battle was cower behind his family crest. Bann Ceorlic had never fought during the rebellion: had no way of recognising the hidden menace behind that particular blink of Loghain's pale eyes. He did not know the significance of suddenly flared nostrils. He could not know those signals normally preceded a killing thrust or slash. He never knew how difficult the decision to stay the blow.

On his way towards Leonas Bryland's tent, the same packhorse neighed at Loghain again. It was lying down now, and the effort seemed to tire it completely. It shivered, as if dislodging imaginary flies, and rolled onto its side. Stark ribs heaved. It shocked Loghain to realise the animal was literally dying before his eyes. There was nothing he could do. He forced his gaze straight ahead, strode on. Three vultures launched themselves from a branch directly ahead. They glided past on their way to the horse, so close he could see the grained bare skin of their legs, hear the oddly chittering pass of chill wind through feathers. Jet-eyed, avid, they ignored him utterly on their way to the feast.

* * *

One hour later, Loghain settled into a large wooden chair inside the command tent, far from the stand with its twin candles. Above him, the carved head of the chair featured a scene of a wolf defending its deer kill against a marauding pack of hyenas. Eleven intense, seeking faces wavered in the murky yellow glow, cast in shifting lines by the double-shadow. The absence of Riordan, still at Redcliffe, meant there was no need for the gaudy Orlesian chair the Warden had appropriated - she sat on a plain Ferelden stool, mabari curled at her feet. She - or her cousin - had taken extra pains with hair, armour and...Maker, she was actually wearing make-up! Artfully applied Orlesian foundation, blusher, lipstick and eyeshadow. Well - that was one way of disguising the effects of a hangover, though he'd never thought to see such a thing at a War Council... To his further surprise, she had chosen to sit beside Arl Eamon. One of her hands covered the old Arl's fat fingers - Loghain couldn't make it out. Eamon's last words to her, spoken at that fateful Landsmeet, had been: "You have acted as might be expected of one of your race and station: insolently using your present fortune, forgetful of your unforeseen rise to power from humble origins...old times come round again. Like King Maric and my father at West Hill, Alistair and I are undone by Elven treachery". Now, she could have been his granddaughter.

Grizzled old Arl Wulf looked unchanged after yesterday's battle: shoulders like a bull, face like a quarry, its scars - a mass of craters and furrows and shiny white silk - like the campaign map on the table. Bann Sighard - quietly composed - and Arl Leonas Bryland sat beside him. The two brothers - Thomas and Nathaniel Howe - sat nearest to the tent flap. Loghain scrutinised the younger man carefully - watching for any sign he had heard the news - but the bland, pale face gave nothing away. Grey eyes settled lightly and coolly upon him.

Loren and Ceorlic sat side-by-side like two ponderous bookends. The exorbitant space occupied by Bann Ceorlic was made up for by his thin, weaselly companion, who seemed to be crammed into as small a space as possible. It was as if he believed he could escape the darkspawn by remaining invisible, and his body, half-convinced, was annihilating itself by degrees.

The final two women were a study in contrasts. Keeper Lanaya sat huddled in one corner, as if trying to remove herself from unpleasant surroundings. The tunnelled hollow of her hood picked out facial highlights: high, smooth brow, sharp cheekbones, slim nose. Primarily, the cowl transformed her eyes. Deep-set in shadowing sockets, they were reduced to prickling points of light.

Rylock, on the other hand, did not hide. Her Templar armour was polished to a frenetic gleam. Damp hair was brushed so neatly the cropped brown-and-grey strands might have been a sleek helm of dark iron. The candlelight shone unforgiving upon the lines and hollows of the spare, austere face. He saw the muted inner glow: the sombre desire to do right as she understood it, the brittle pride and bleak regret; the basic honesty that made no attempt to hide the dark rings around eyes luminous with sleeplessness.

Loghain began without preamble. "Our final supplies arrived this morning. Enough for two weeks more. We must break the horde at Ostagar - or be forced to retreat to Denerim. If we do, we lose Ferelden's fertile crescent. The nation will follow."

A babble of voices broke out like the swell of rain on surf. Arl Wulf, Arl Bryland, and Bann Sighard all looked quietly resigned - they had expected nothing else. Ceorlic began to mutter - and was quickly shushed by Loren. Bann Nathaniel leaned forward, grey eyes seeking, and murmured:

"I have every intention of honouring our commitment to supply our forces from Highever and Amaranthine storehouses - I trust that you will return the courtesy."

The show of support could be taken two ways - and one of them Loghain felt as a blade at his back.

"I know my debts. I know my enemies. I will honour our agreement," he snapped.

The tension was suddenly broken when Arl Eamon leaned forward, regarding Loghain with an affable smile:

"Don't overdo on this dreadful food. I'll have the servants prepare something special when we reach Redcliffe. To celebrate our victory. Everyone's invited."

Everyone stared at Eamon as though he had suddenly grown two heads. Loghain weighed the man's strange, too-cheerful smile - caught the Warden's silent plea for understanding - and understood. No wonder the Warden behaved as a granddaughter to the old man - perhaps, given her own tendency to retreat into fantasy, she felt some kinship. A shadow of regret almost made itself felt: Eamon had spent half his life bemoaning the fact that his father and sister had allowed him none of the glories of battle - that he'd been shunted aside to the Free Marches until the rebellion was over. Fate had a twisted sense of humour indeed - he'd finally tasted war and been unable to assimilate it. It occurred to Loghain that the man's poisoning and forced trip to the Fade hadn't helped either. He determinedly replayed a phrase from one of Eamon's letters - _barren, fallow, a worn-out garment hanging in the palace because Your Majesty has not the heart to put it aside_ - to counter the swift, unimportant whisper of guilt.

"Indeed," Loghain returned drily, "We must not overdo on the supplies. As of today, we march on half-rations. And..." he swept the table with a gaze no-one but Rylock, Wulf and Sighard could match for long, "As the plan to use Ostagar defensively will not require cavalry, I require that the Templar Order dispense with one half of those slope-shouldered Orlesian hay-furnaces."

Rylock shot to her feet, outraged. "Never! A Templar knight who does not look after his horse as well as himself is of little use to the Maker. If you are truly serious about defending your nation from some unproven Orlesian threat, you should not be so quick to dispose of such a valuable asset!"

"Really?" asked Loghain with silken scorn, trying to ignore the blazing wash of childhood memories...

_...his frustrated, raging, agonized tears when his father was forced to sell their beloved horses, to pay the Orlesians' ravaging taxes. They had, against all odds, managed the fieldfee that year - only to see it raised the next.. .Gareth Mac Tir had told him the old proverb of the farmer's family who bought the finest, fattest pig at the fair, then couldn't bear to slaughter it, so the farmer and his family died but the pig lived..._

Or, to put it more succinctly, Loghain thought: _he who tries to defend everything defends nothing..._

"Shall I take that as the Order's commitment to actually _do_ something in the event of invasion - instead of sitting on its hands as Mother Bronach did last time?"

Rylock's dark eyes were flat and cold as a bird of prey's. "A Templar knight does not draw his sword against his fellow man. A Templar knight must only shed the blood of maleficarum and darkspawn. You know this. So what else could she possibly have done? If the Order _were_ to become involved in national politics, you would no doubt accuse us of meddling. You cannot have it both ways."

"Indeed," Loghain murmured darkly, a feral grin stretching his lips, "We managed without you before and will again. We took on chevaliers with lightly armoured archers, and when we caught hold of those over-fed, over-bred destriers - we killed them and roasted them."

"I'd sooner roast you!"

Loghain gritted his teeth, matching Rylock glare for glare, neither of them backing down. He sighed - well-aware that he lacked the power to compel the Knight-Commander to do as he asked. If she intended to waste supplies on useless horses, he could not stop her. He had discovered Rylock to be a woman of fierce, unsuspected depths, but in spite - or perhaps _because_ - of their shared experience, she was now acting as though she had her sword of mercy stuck so firmly up her arse she could cut him with her tongue.

"Teyrn Loghain, if I may..." The lilting, accented voice was so quiet it seemed to thread into his thoughts, floating above the cacophony of voices, higher and softer than candlelight. Cowl thrown back, Keeper Lanaya's birdlike form appeared poised for flight, but her hooded jade-green eyes were steady.

"Yes, what is it?" Loghain sighed - with an unconscious rudeness he regretted as soon as the words left his mouth. He was not the only one who tended to dismiss Keeper Lanaya as though she were a child intruding on a grown-up gathering: the Elven appearance of youth and small stature, the fact that she was not actively in combat...a mistake, he knew, to disregard a valuable ally.

If she felt insulted she did not show it. "I regret that our hunters have not shared their skills and the supplies we have. I will order that we do so. As we share danger, so we shall also share food."

"That's - extremely generous of you." Loghain shot Rylock a meaningful glare. The Templar bristled.

"Generous?" The alien eyes swept him up and down, and Loghain caught the intimation of some vast gulf of misunderstanding. "I think not. Your people show their strength by taking, is that not so? He who is strong can take from his neighbour, whether it is countries or men. We show our strength by giving. The food-giver is stronger. The life-giver is stronger. That is why Keepers - who are said to have the _most_ to give - are Clan leaders." There was a subtle change in the air as she said the word "most" - an undercurrent like a crackle of electricity. Even Loghain felt it. It acted on Rylock like a hot needle. She jerked upright - too-thin, too-taut body beginning to radiate a faint white heat.

_If she dares raise the issue of apostates now..._ But Rylock, her warning given, restrained herself by sheer effort of will and tamped her light. Lanaya settled back in her chair - pale, cool, amused - and drew the cowl over her head.

Nor could Loghain ever admit that he had remembered his father's lesson the day he sold Elven men, women and children to Tevinter. _If I were an Elf I wouldn't give humanity the steam off my piss..._

"If supplies are a problem," Bann Loren's thin, reedy whine cut across Loghain's thoughts, "Might it not be an idea to release some of us to tend to our fields?"

"Absolutely not!" Loghain thundered - and was gratified to see Wulf and Sighard regarding Loren with equal disdain, "We will break the darkspawn horde at Ostagar - and break the back of the Orlesian invasion come spring."

"It is not certain they will invade." That was Leonas Bryland - his tone gently chiding. The faint edge of condescension rasped Loghain's frayed nerves like wire brush. "There is still time to find a diplomatic solution - as King Cailan sought to do."

There was a murmur around the table - a waveform that ebbed and flowed - agreement too strong for silence.

Loghain felt a slow crawl in his belly as he realised that over half the Bannorn supported the idea. Could it be possible that most of Ferelden's nobility did not know - did not feel, in their bones - what independence meant? That their kinship was to their own kind above and beyond any sense of Ferelden as a nation? It was all so very clear to him - had been clear to Maric - but he and Maric had been two dispossessed young men on the run. He had loved Maric for weaving his hatred of Orlais into different cloth - for changing the anger of a vigilante to the ideal of a freedom fighter. For proving, after West Hill, that he was not simply another blue-blood to whom his soldiers were expendable. Was it possible it had worked both ways - that Maric had believed in Ferelden as a nation because he had come to see it through Loghain's eyes: an ideal defined by challenge, through the values of generations of proud Ferelden freeholders? Loghain remembered that first Landsmeet - the way his own experiences had recast the crowd of baying nobles as men who had all suffered under the usurper's hands.

Had they? _Had_ they? During Meghren's rule, they had affected Orlesian court clothes, Orlesian manners - spoken the language like natives...

_The noble who had raped and murdered his mother, destroyed his world - had he been Orlesian at all?_

The realisation that it was impossible to know for sure was a loathsome worm that twisted at the back of his mind.

To the men in front of him, the vision was only in the Theirin bloodline...as if blood, by itself, meant anything. A peculiar form of Blood Magic, he thought, with the dry rictus of a smile. _Blood's just a substance that leaks from a wound... _It was why Loghain's refusal to sacrifice the army for Maric's son had not, after all, been betrayal.

_I promised you, my friend, that I would never put the King above the Kingdom. That I would take care of Ferelden for you..._

Loghain smiled around the table - and there was no-one who knew him well enough to understand the particular ferocity of his grin - to know he was always most dangerous when backed into a corner, alone and outmatched.

_I will take lessons from you, Howe, and you, my daughter, in how to build support. I cannot make them value what my King understood so well, but I can force them to it..._

Cousland and Howe could be played against each other - he would find the ammunition he needed at Ostagar.

Wulf and Sighard - grizzled survivals of the age of the warring Alamarri Teyrns - would resist Orlesian control as naturally as they'd resist his: he need not worry. Sighard would have his duel, of course, but that was a personal matter - would not affect his loyalties to Queen and country. An enemy to treasure.

Leonas Bryland - a blue-blood through-and-through; cousin to Bryce Cousland - would be tougher. His natural bent would be to support a union with Orlais. Unless he was sweetened with a marriage-tie: South Reach and Gwaren would be powerful as a combined territory; Bryland's sole heir was of marriageable age. Loghain grimaced at the thought of it. A vague memory of a screeching wail and a voice that could strip paint raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He had sworn there was nothing he would not do for his homeland...Had he meant it? He gritted his teeth. Yes.

He would be sure to promote as many soldiers loyal to him as possible. It was about time Cauthrien had her own lands - her own voice at the Landsmeet.

Last but not least, he must bring back the remains of the Joining supplies left at Ostagar. If he could have Jowan figure out the formula - in exchange for protection from the Chantry - he could create Wardens loyal to Ferelden. Not Weisshaupt, nor the Warden's personal goals. Ferelden must not be held to ransom by a foreign order.

Loghain focussed his attention on dealing with the easiest targets. With Loren and Ceorlic, whose loyalties were ever-fluid, no amount of bribery or coercion would suffice. Only naked threat would do. He let some of that bleed into his voice, held and pinioned their eyes as a snake holds a bird's. Ceorlic's: small, dark, glinting beneath overhanging brows...Loren's, pale and watery.

"Ferelden is not a bloodline; our lands not the right of nobility to trade away in a game of thrones. Ferelden is an ideal: of freedom, of _independence. _So Maric said to me after West Hill. Since that day, I have made those words my purpose. Ideals are fragile, but purposes endure. You can reject that purpose - you can choose to return to being dogs edging each other for scraps around the Empress' table. But then do not be surprised when the lioness comes to feed. Ferelden will be torn in two, as she was during the Civil War, and the lioness will snap up your bleeding half too. You will wonder how you were safe when the skin was whole. Some of you would like to see me fall. It may still happen. But understand this: I will brook no threat to Ferelden from you or anyone. Anyone who deserts in the face of the darkspawn will be given to them. Anyone who turns his hand against the nation when the Orlesians invade will share their fate."

He moved his head from side to side - a wolf inspecting a herd of sheep - examined each member of the Bannorn. He had been through flame and darkness - all he had to do was lay it bare. Ceorlic and Loren stared, transfixed - white with pure naked terror of man for man. Silence fell like a shroud. Then, satisfied that no-one held notions of further irritation, Loghain returned to the campaign map as if nothing had happened:

"Our intelligence reports a second, larger mass of darkspawn directly south of Lake Calenhad. Our present forces are too depleted to engage them in the open. But if the forces of the Bastard Prince at Redcliffe can drive them toward us, we can break them upon the rock of Ostagar. We will reach the fortress in under a week…"

* * *

When it was over, the group poured from the tent like pebbles gushing from a jar. The air was thick: high, soft candlelight formed a glowing wreath above motes of dust and the fog of breath, so that the faces seemed to waver amid tendrils of light and shadow. Loghain breathed a sigh of relief as he came into the chill, acrid sharpness of open air. Beside him, the Warden took Eamon's arm and guided him back to his tent. She seemed to be doing better as a doting granddaughter than an ally - she hadn't said one word the entire meeting. The contrast with the youthful optimism of her pre-battle speech was jarring. The faint strains of Eamon's nonsense drifted past:

"You remind me so much of Alistair's mother - except her hair was dark..."

Eamon seemed to be forgetting the Warden's Elvenness, Loghain thought dryly - after making such a point of it in the Landsmeet. The woman named as Alistair's mother had been human: a Redcliffe servant who had died in childbirth.

"You don't have the benefit of a staff, of course - but you do very well without..."

Fatuous flattery. Silly, unctuous insistence that the Warden's cousin had done as well for her as the large number of personal staff who had done the woman's hair and make-up. Maric had always taken good care of his mistresses. Was there no end to the man's foolish prattle? Loghain let the rest wash over him. He returned to his tent - wrote a hasty letter to Anora - then summoned Arvall to collect his payment and the message for delivery. Then he dismissed the man, and left the tent.

To the west, the little village of camp-followers and refugees had hung washing lines from upturned wagons. Sheets and clothing billowed like full-blown roses, gilded red by the sunrise. Loghain thought, incongruously, of the roses he had brought to his wife - of how his grasp had bloodied his flesh - of how determined he had been not to let go. Unaware of the direction his walk had taken him, he almost bumped in to Cauthrien as she came out from the tent she shared with the officers of Maric's Shield. She saluted.

"Cauthrien," he began without preamble, "I intend to scout ahead at Ostagar. I'll be gone several days. You're in command here."

Dark eyes snapped in outrage.

"Out of the question, ser! If you must send someone, then send me. The Joining supplies, I assume, and the King's correspondence?"

Loghain hid a tight smile. Cauthrien understood the importance of planning. Always thinking ahead - that was the way of a soldier and General. She would be a worthy successor.

"Indeed," he said, "And never doubt I'd trust you in anything. But my night skills are better." It was not the _whole _truth - but Loghain found he did not want to examine his other reasons too closely. "If necessary, you can take over the next stage of the campaign as competently."

"The Banns will not follow me."

"They will," he said, a dark smile twitching his lips, "Once they hear that you are steward of Gwaren."

"A dead man is in a poor position to oversee promotion," was the tart response.

Loghain chuckled. "It's already been done. I sent the recommendation to Anora. I had always intended Gwaren to be her fallback - but she is better served by your support in future Landsmeets."

Cauthrien opened her mouth to argue - realised it would do no good - and shut it. "So be it," she said, with a faintly wistful smile, "If you die, we'll carry on. Ferelden is more than any one man - even you."

Loghain stood still and watched Cauthrien for several long moments - simply watched her. He had learned early on in life not to expect too much loyalty, or stretch it too much. Yet here it was in front of him.

Cauthrien was so quiet and professional Loghain often forgot how much he told her - how much of his past and present thoughts, things he'd said both intentionally and unintentionally, she kept diligently stored for him. Only when one of those things surfaced at exactly the right moment, thanks to her sensitive timing, did he remember to appreciate her. He wouldn't forget again for a long, long time.

"But," she added - and her smile had changed; become lighter, almost teasing - "I _will _have twenty Night Elves accompany you - their stealth matches yours; and I suggest you find some excuse for asking the Warden. You'll need those senses if you want to avoid ambush. I'll have no foolish heroics - you are not to repeat King Cailan's mistake."

Routed effortlessly, Loghain understood that the only thing to do was surrender gracefully - or as gracefully as he could manage. He grunted.

"Make it so," he ordered.

* * *

The Warden sulked in her tent.

While Loghain chewed out the officer left in charge of supervising the digging of the waste trenches, and Wynne checked the progress of those in the hospital tent, and Cauthrien sent a runner to fetch Pir Surana and twenty of his men, it seemed the Warden was determined to do nothing useful at all. She had knelt like a penitent over the mass grave, marked by King Maric's banner, an Elven arrow and a sword of mercy, and hung an amulet worn by the knights of Redcliffe over the hilt. Then she had sat off by herself with the Qunari's sword across her raised knees, blank face dead but eyes glitteringly alive, boiling with unshed tears. Then she had brightened at the sound of her name - her soldiers calling her to celebration - and danced with them. Their attitude was curiously deferential. They did not touch her - took none of the liberties they would normally have done - gazed at her as though she were a living statue of Andraste, framed by music and firelight. She had listened to the absurd ballad - sung by the equally frivolous Orlesian - that depicted her going toe-to-toe with the Hurlock General and puffed up as though the song added extra inches. Then all at once her mood had changed. Someone had called out:

"A toast to the Dragonslayer!"

and her lower lip had jutted petulantly. She had muttered that they hadn't understood anything and stormed off.

Loghain approached the overblown monstrosity of the Warden's tent. Made of fine gold cloth - studded with ornamentation - tied shut with a heavy velvet sash. A shadow brushed the edges of his vision. Instinct made him turn - Nathaniel Howe was heading in the opposite direction, moving soundlessly as always, feet placing themselves as if possessed of their own vision. Grey eyes flicked over him, coolly, then lit upon the tent like moths.

"A gift from the soldiers," the young man murmured, "For ensuring their victory."

Loghain and Nathaniel shared a sardonic smile: enemies united in a moment of perfect solidarity.

Loghain continued on, and the Warden's mabari - a loyal and silent guardian curled outside - announced him with a happy bark. A rustle - a muttered grumble - a murmur of female voices - and the sash was drawn aside, the tent flap thrown open. The Warden stood there, limned in candlelight. It emphasised her high, sharp cheekbones, determined chin, and the red hair - rumpled and loose from its braids - that now stood on end like the feathers of a peacock. The fingers that she ran through it were bitten to the quick, half-moon nails grimy. She was still wearing the Dragonscale armour - custom-made to fit her scrawny frame and etched with gold filigree - as though it kept her in one piece.

"Yes, what is it?" came the world-weary tones of a Teyrn forced to deal with a sea of suppliants. "Oh - it's you," she added sourly, and - after a moment's hesitation - shuffled aside, waving her hand in a petulant gesture that passed for invitation.

Loghain found himself standing amid an enormous slagheap of mess and frippery: baubles, trinkets, a rose-coloured candle, a glass paperweight - rare in Ferelden - squares of bright cloth knit by grateful refugees, an unwashed Grey Warden tunic, a half-eaten hunk of cheese, a bottle of pink cider and a collection of impressionist paintings. He recognised one: a depiction of Moira, the Rebel Queen. Her companion - the young red-haired cousin who had tried to end him the night before - was in the process of clearing up - lips gone rather thin as she surveyed the sea of self-indulgence. Loghain cut his eyes to the mess and then to the young woman with a faint eye-roll - an invitation of solidarity - but the stiff-necked Elf pointedly turned away from him, loyalty to her cousin overriding exasperation. The move also put her within reach of the freshly-oiled, double-curved shortbow upon the weapon rack - and he well knew the speed with which she drew. Her hard-shut white lips and fixed glittering stare gave the undeniable impression he wore a bull's-eye between his shoulderblades.

Oblivious to what was going on behind her, the Warden threw her hands up. Their slender, supple fingers were carved by the regular scars of lutestrings, overlaid by the calluses of gauntlets and sword-grips - but it was the entertainer not the soldier he faced here.

"Everyone wants a piece of me - I came here to escape. Can't I have a moment's peace?"

"You could," Loghain answered, dead-pan, "if you changed that armour for leather. I managed that much after the rebellion, when I wanted to travel incognito."

Like ripples across a reflection in water, the mobile, expressive face hovered on the verge of a sulky retort - then blossomed into a reluctant, sheepish smile. "I don't change it because I enjoy it," she admitted shamefacedly, "Hearing my name on everyone's lips. Nobles who'd have passed the likes of me like rats in a gutter. Soldier's who'd have..." The smile flickered and died. "It must be very wrong of me - after the deaths of Sten and Ser Perth and so many others - but I can't help it. Leliana's song is a beautiful lie - we both know that - but it's true to life as it should be and that's a better truth than the other."

"Humph. No more a lie than the stories of Loghain and his Night Elves defeating armoured chevaliers in stupidly heroic ways. They died in the dark, bleeding out their lives, their throats slit." His tone cooled and hardened under the freighted weight of dark satisfaction.

The Warden's smile rekindled, dancing like motes of light about the grimness Loghain drew about himself. "And I bet you enjoyed those stories too."

"I did not." Loghain glared. Maric had... Transient echoes of happier times swirled around him: Maric dragging Rowan and a reluctant Loghain to victory dances around their campfire, pulling them into his infectious enthusiasm - or off sulking by himself when he felt Arl Rendorn wasn't taking him seriously...

The Warden looked thoughtful for a moment - then her smile widened into a grin of startling familiarity. "Maybe not. But you _do_ enjoy being the backbone of celebrity commanders."

Loghain scowled - tried and failed to refute that - pricked by undeniable truth. Suddenly aware of the young woman glaring quietly by the weapon rack, the Warden blushed scarlet - turned quickly - stumbled, and managed: "Oh - Shianni, this is Loghain. Loghain - my cousin, Shianni. You've - um - met - but I didn't get the chance to introduce you..." The Warden moved to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her cousin, young face glowing with fierce pride: "Shianni fought in the Dalish front lines."

"The way your people rolled up the darkspawn right flank ensured our victory," Loghain acknowledged - but Shianni only gave an angry snort.

"Would you two," the Warden tried again, a little desperately, "like some cheese and cider?"

"I'd prefer some fresh air," the young woman muttered - her look at Loghain making it clear who was to blame for the lack of it. One swift, feral movement saw her grab bow and quiver and stalk towards the tent flap, her tight-muscled frame as graceful as the Warden was gawky. The velvet sash was thrown violently aside, then pointedly closed behind her. Loghain knew she was waiting on the other side, arrow nocked and ready, aiming for the shadow he cast against the candlelight, watching for any sudden move.

Her words sparked thought, like flint into tinder. "Still an east wind," he murmured, causing the Warden to blink in puzzlement, "I hope it holds."

The tone alerted her. "Why?"

"I'm going to scout ahead at Ostagar."

"Out of the question."

" I hope you change your mind. Otherwise, I'll have to disobey. That's - unprofessional. And bad for morale. I'd dislike that."

"You'd _dislike_?" The Warden drew herself up to her full five-foot-five, hands on hips, eyebrows drawing together like storm-clouds, the lobster-shell armour and spiky hair adding height and breadth. Loghain was reminded, irresistibly, of a bird spreading its feathers in threat display. "I'd dislike losing a General!"

"My purpose there has been fulfilled. Cauthrien can take over the next stage of the campaign as competently."

The words pierced the cloud of outrage to hit their target: the Alienage practicality that lay beneath the flamboyance. The Warden cocked her head, eyes level and cool, sizing up his usefulness to the army versus his proposal.

"What would you do?"

"Scout for traps - make sure we're not marching into ambush. When I reach the fortress, I'll use Dworkin's explosives to collapse the tunnels beneath Ishal - leave no trace of that filth behind." It was all true, it was simply - not everything...

The Warden crossed her arms about her chest, a last remnant of her annoyance. Irritably, but without her previous intensity, she said: "It's a bad idea. You're not a Warden: you're not immune to taint and you can't sense darkspawn the way we can. Riordan's with Alistair at Redcliffe - there's no-one else."

"There's one."

Outrage returned full-force. The Warden's glare was acid as the Dockers' cider she had boasted of enjoying. "I'm responsible for every soul here. I can't go prowling around in the dark like some night raider."

"No-one said you should."

Storm-clouds still swirled within the amber eyes, heavying them, but the luminosity of laughter broke through like glints of sunlight behind rain.

"You baited me, didn't you? You're devious as Arl Eamon used to be."

"A truly vicious insult. I'm impressed."

The Warden sighed, let go of her anger in a little huff, and gazed forlornly at the rumpled bed-roll where she had clearly been planning to sleep off the night's debauch. "Come on - we'll get ready. I don't relish the idea of sending men into darkspawn traps either."

At the tent flap she stopped, a sudden shadow passing over the sunlight, aging her in seconds. Her hand hovered by the sash, aimless as Arl Eamon's fat fingers, not at all like her usual swift exuberant certainty. "Loghain - there's something you should know. About Ostagar. The creature that murdered Sten - the Hurlock General - he was wearing King Cailan's armour."

Images rifled through Loghain's mind with ghostly fingers, poking and pawing. He was reminded of the chill in the air, the way it seemed to sneak through gaps in his defences. All he had seen during the Orlesian invasion showed him the rest: Cailan's body defiled, mutilated; a trophy...

_His back was broken - he was dead before he fell. Meat only: the boy I knew had gone..._

The Warden's mouth twisted: the smile bitter as myrrh and sharp as a blade.

"The Hurlock General killed Sten. Nathaniel and I killed him. A poor bargain."

Loghain's lips twitched in a graveyard smile, sharing a warrior's dark amusement. When she was herself, the young Elf was engaging, sunny, grandiloquent. Like Cailan. When she was the Warden, she was violent, sombre, deadly. Like him. Her moods shifted from one to the other in mercurial tides.

"Something else: the ogre that killed the King - was the same creature Sten fought. Dead - but walking. Which means: an emissary at Ostagar. A powerful one. We don't know if he's remained there - but I think we should get a Templar. A Templar and mage both."

Loghain hid a smile at the way events seemed to be falling in his favour. "Jowan and Ser Otto have no duties with the army. Knight Commander Rylock will not be able to refuse." He'd have to have a word with Jowan - make sure the boy understood his brief. Ser Otto was a brave man - but the knight's physical limitations meant he would not be able to watch too closely...

The Warden gave him an odd look - eyes suddenly flat as two copper coins, unreadable - but said nothing.

"Oh, and Warden," Loghain added as he turned to go, "Use stealth. Wear leather, cover your hair and scrub your face. That armour will show up like a damned beacon." Being Loghain, he could not resist a final jab: "That will solve your celebrity problem too. You'll emerge half the woman you used to be - as a peacock without plumage, no-one will give you a second glance."

* * *

Clad in his old, battered leather armour, and satisfied with the way the pieces of his plan seemed to be falling into place, Loghain strode quickly towards the knoll where the horses were tied: a squat smear of dark rock jutting into a sky like a marble lid. It was gray with dawn, and cloudless, at once translucent and obscure, like a mirror on which cobwebs and dust had accumulated for years. The silty Drakon river crawled sluggishly around the base, dark-glinting as salmon-skin, reminding him irresistibly of a metallic noose. At the base, the charred remains of the moribund tent were an intimation of what they would find at Ostagar. The top was shrouded by the fringe of fir trees that stood like dour sentinels. The hard-packed earth and jagged slate made more of an impression through leather boots than sabatons, but Loghain found himself relishing the sensation, body falling into long-forgotten lines as he adjusted for the sinuous curve of the bow across his back. The sword that served him well was still belted about his waist, but he had left the wyvern shield behind. The faint citrus scents of gorse, scrub, and the small wind-blasted plants that clung to the hill's edge mixed with the chill sharpness of the air. He followed the scent of horse, found the dun-coloured stallion that had carried him since the start of the campaign, and greeted him with more affection than he showed any human. The frost from the horse's nostrils formed silky grey tendrils pearly as mist, lit by the dawn. Dauntless was a cross between the sturdy Ferelden horses from north of Highever, and the Orlesian destriers he had insulted earlier. He placed the sheepskin saddle-cloth about the long glistening back, then saddled and bridled him. Then he untied the animal, mounted up, and waited for Jowan, Ser Otto and the Warden to join him. Pir Surana and his men would be waiting at the edge of the forest - as always, it was a competition between them who could spot the other first. Loghain seldom won.

The trio who did join him were not the three he was expecting. His heart sank when the lean, hard-muscled form of Rylock strode towards him, plain leather armour somehow making her look more like a Templar than ever. Devoid of pomp and purple sash, she was all sinew and angle, purpose and faith.

"Don't you trust Ser Otto?" he barked.

The tough keen eyes beneath shadowing sockets narrowed. Her pupils were pinpoints of intensity. "I trust Ser Otto completely - but he is needed here to guard Jowan. It is the Blood Mage I do _not_ trust."

Loghain digested this, the sinking feeling in his chest only just preceding the sight of - Wynne…

Clad in a dark grey travelling cloak, the mage was using her staff to aid her balance: the impression of frailty deceptive, as Loghain had discovered.

"Wynne's duties…" he began.

"…have been redefined."

"I see. And yours?"

An edge of regret rimmed the dark, quiet eyes. Too proud to make the admission easily and too honest to deny it, Rylock said simply, "I have placed Templar-Sergeant Rocald in charge during my absence. He was an experienced soldier before he joined the Order. I am - better suited to tracking creatures such as this emissary than to command in war."

Loghain grunted. Sergeant Rocald: a man-at-arms at Castle Redcliffe, who had joined the Templar Order after his wife and daughter had died at the hands of the child abomination. Cauthrien had said he fought like a panther in a sheep-pen. Only Rylock could look him in the eye for long.

Rylock's mount was a sturdy, reliable gelding with an odd white spot like a flame in the centre of his forehead. She caressed the big brown backside with one scarred hand, its leather bindings leaving her fingers free. The Templar as an animal-lover - who'd have thought it? Rylock mounted up - all angles and muscle and grace - and Loghain found himself thinking, incongruously, of Rowan: of how riding had transmuted her sturdy practicality to unrivalled radiance. Irritated with the memory - and annoyed that his plans for the Joining supplies had been dented - Loghain muttered:

"Who needs a husband when you've got a gelding?"

Rylock spared him one haughty glance, not deigning to respond.

Wynne approached. Her arched brows were narrowed in a frown, their edges raised like the uplifted wings of a pale eagle. Of all the people he might have wished to join him at Ostagar, Wynne would not have been his first choice. Last night, she had offered a form of redemption - now the raw memories rose between them without words.

Wynne glared suspiciously at the colourless old nag assigned to her - a beast clearly too decrepit for any rider expect one who did not know what she was doing. She bristled at Loghain's ill-concealed smirk.

"This thing's almost dead already. I assure you in my time I've ridden stronger beasts." Her ocean-blue eyes held the gloss of a satisfied cat.

Loghain raised an eyebrow. "Madam - you are in grave danger of over-estimating your own abilities."

Wynne's electric gaze crackled like the glowing nimbus at the end of her staff - but Loghain was saved from a mage's wrath by the sight of the Warden. Wynne's mouth formed a startled "o" - Rylock glanced in her direction, then looked quickly away, face carefully expressionless.

The Warden had clearly taken Loghain's instructions as a challenge. She cut a dashing figure as she skimmed towards them, seeming almost to bounce, buoyed by the wings of her own inventiveness. Soft, supple leather dark as a blue-black bruise fitted her like a second skin, lined by velvet and gilded by intricate designs about waist and shoulders. It was an unpleasantly familiar costume: the Shadow of the Empire worn by King Meghren's elite assassins. Stories had it they still operated within Ferelden. Loghain did not doubt this was true - but they certainly would not be parading their calling by wearing such a distinctive uniform. Moles hidden deep within ordinary society, like the snake coiled within Denerim who had passed the Empress' letters, would dress to fit in. Those outfits that remained were mostly to be found in bad theatre - which, given the Warden's pretensions of bardhood, was probably where she had acquired it. As if that explosion of sartorial decadence was not enough, she had teamed the outfit with a dark cloak that billowed like a bat's wings, high leather boots, and cowl. And rather than scrub her face clean of make-up, she had chosen to disguise it with an opera mask. Amber eyes peered from behind its slits, so bright with glee they looked full, as though they might spill over. Her mabari gamboled around her, mirroring her exuberance.

"A Warden doesn't fight darkspawn in less than her best."

"Well - if your Warden senses fail us, I can always throw the creatures a second-rate actor while the rest of us make our escape."

The Warden stalked towards her black horse - a gift from Arl Eamon, built for speed rather than endurance - in a flurry of cloak and huffing and indignant flounces. Her mabari - who had taken a shine to Loghain earlier - now gave him a warning bark. Their indignation was interrupted by Wynne's discovery that her horse had taken exception to her earlier comments. The mage's exasperated wail announced the devilment the beast had in mind.

Wynne was struggling to do up the strap looped under the animal to secure the saddle. "She's holding her breath. I knew she was being too quiet."

The Warden grabbed the leather strap, pulled with Wynne. The horse grunted. "Maybe she'll exhale if we wait."

The Warden's suggestion carried no hope, and Wynne answered accordingly. "This stubborn oat-burner will stand here with a gut full of air, taking teeny-tiny breaths, until we buckle up. You know it. I know it. The horse knows it. I'll mount up - get five paces down the trail - and she'll breathe out in one big "whoosh" and both saddle and I will be in the dirt. I'm going to have to take drastic steps." She hefted her staff meaningfully.

The Warden's face fell. "Are you sure? It seems so harsh."

Wynne gathered herself, brought the tip of her staff level with the animal's belly. One sharp poke sent compressed breath exploding from the horse in a lip-flapping, nostril flaring rush. The other end of the creature erupted in a ghastly, burbling bugling.

Both women yelped dismay, but gathered themselves quickly to yank on the strap, drawing it several holes tighter. The horse danced - an intricate piece of footwork that took it absolutely nowhere, but brimmed with immense satisfaction. It turned to fix a sardonic eye on the mage, as if to warn: "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Moving so quickly the animal had no time to escape, the Warden had it by the nose, opened its mouth. She peered inside. Wide-eyed with disbelief, Wynne asked, "What are you doing?"

"Looking for the problem." The Warden let go, stepped back. "That horse is too mean, nasty and rude to be just an ordinary animal. There's got to be a man in there somewhere."

Wynne clapped a hand to her mouth. Laughter squealed past. Even Rylock's dour expression was softened by a hint of amusement. All three women traded a glance of complete agreement.

Loghain rolled his eyes.

* * *

_Song inspirations for this one are:_

_The Bannorn: Cream - Political Man_

_Rilian: Florence and the Machine - Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)_

* * *

_AN: I am truly sorry for the massive delay in posting (especially as my last AN promised to post within a week lol) I'm going to make the chapters a little shorter, and prod myself to manage one a week until this story is finished. Wish me luck :)_

_The references to Maric dragging a reluctant Loghain to victory dances during the rebellion come straight from icey cold's awesome Interlude X: Maric's Waltz. icey is also responsible for the chilling but very plausible idea that the knight who raped and murdered Loghain's mother was not Orlesian._

_I'd like to thank Josie, Tyanilth, Shakespira, icey cold and Arsinoe: our various discussions __on the financial situation of Ferelden have helped a lot in providing the backdrop for the dire straits Loghain and the army find themselves in._

_With regards to the West Hill/West Hills issue, pointed out by Tyanilth in the excellent chapter 45 of The Hourglass, I have decided that as it's already been established in DATM canon that Wulf is Arl of West Hill on the northern coast, with Alfstanna as one of his Banns, I'm going to keep it that way. So: Wulf gets a reprieve - his Arling was not destroyed by darkspawn, and the invisible Arling in southern Ferelden never existed. To me, this also helps explain the inconsistencies between the lack of a "Ferelden navy" in game lore - yet the DLC pack suggesting they have one. I can buy Loghain choosing to build up the nation's defences over the past thirty years - but it clearly happened at the expense of the country's economy. Massive military expenditure = Ferelden folds like a house of cards when the darkspawn attack. But no way would Loghain have built up a navy yet allowed forts like West Hill to decay - therefore Wulf, Alfstanna and others must be manning viable defences. When given the choice between attempting to rationalize the developers' mistakes, and changing things so that (hopefully!) they make sense, I've decided to go with the latter..._


	17. Chapter 17: Through A Glass, Darkly

**AN: I have a confession to make. I didn't manage to cover Ostagar in this chapter. Instead, I went off into a rather self-indulgent tangent that explores the Dalish, Flemeth, hints of the future, some in-game side-quests and my own strange ideas. There are references to too many games, films, songs and novels to list them all: but they include Baldur's Gate 2, LOTR, Anne of Avonlea, The Deed Of Paksennarion, Pink Floyd: Time, The Persian Boy, Shelley's "Ozymandias", The Iliad and The Picture Of Dorian Gray.**

**Shout-outs go to icey cold and Shakespira - the scene in which Rilian tells the story of the founding of the Wardens comes from our shared fic: "The Grey Tales" (published under Genespira Cold) - and icey kindly shared her notes on the Legacy DLC with me. And to analect - for Leliana's parentage.**

**The reason I'm putting this AN here is simply to say: if you prefer to cut straight to the darkspawn action, it's entirely possible to skip this chapter. But, before you do, please take a look at the gorgeous pic of Rilian analect has done for me. It's titled "The Warden Sulked In Her Tent" and illustrates the scene from the last chapter. The link (minus spaces) is: shallowline. deviantart art/ The-Warden-Sulked-In-Her-Tent - 285941254 Thank you, analect. You have made my head-canon Rilian. SQUEE!**

_The stone fidelity_

_They hardly meant has come to be_

_Their final blazon, and to prove_

_Our almost-instinct almost-true_

_What will survive of us is love_

An Arundel Tomb, Philip Larkin

Wynne kept her gaze fixed on the pearly, opalescent back of her horse as she followed the others down the trail. A mane as light and fine as the pale glisten of her breath swirled in the chill sharp breeze. Wynne felt the undulating ripple of muscle beneath saddle and traveling cloak; the way the animal delicately lifted half-moon hooves to avoid patches of sharp stone. Despite their rocky start, mage and horse had developed an unspoken understanding: a graceful interplay of muscles Wynne had seldom used before. She wondered that she had ever thought of the mare as a colourless old nag: in the grey-and-rose wash of dawn, she gleamed almost silver.

"And I should know better than to judge a book by its cover," she murmured in apology. The horse whuffled at her, a delicate toss of mane a clear acceptance. "Do you have a name? No - well I shall call you Lady Silverhair."

Loghain had taken the lead, Rylock second - Rilian dropped back to ride beside her. Together, they admired the fiery wash of dawn that gilded the tops of trees within the forest of South Reach as though rose champagne had been poured over them. The sky was bruise-blue and flesh-pink, Wynne thought - and then berated herself for thinking in terms of healing.

"…and dawn appeared rosy-fingered," Rilian quoted dreamily. She had moved the silly mask to sit atop her head - the bright red hair poked through in spiky tufts - and Wynne could see her faraway smile; head tilted up and a little leftward. She took her left arm off the reins to point, just as they crested a ridgeline.

"You see something in the clouds?" Wynne asked, hiding a smile.

The young Elf nodded, trying to look businesslike. "You see those small, soft puffballs, hurrying along from east to west? Shianni told me the Dalish call them rabbits. The wolves will follow: darker, heavier. It's a weather front. She says a storm's coming. It could get dangerous."

Wynne shrugged, the wool of her cloak rustling slightly. It made her feel secure, like a bird nestled within warm feathers. "This mission is already dangerous. And, dangerous or not, that sky is glorious. Many times I used to gaze from the topmost level of the Tower and…" She cut the words off. "That's what you're really doing, isn't it? Just looking."

Rilian grinned sheepishly. "You got me. I was trying to remember an Elven song. My mother taught me. For years, I couldn't bring myself to sing it - until Leliana told me we shouldn't fear death, or hate it. It's a song about the fall of Arlathan. This sky is that music. The notes seem to mourn: soft, wistful. The lute comes in then, heavy. The bass notes surround the voice, like the swell of rain on surf." She blushed faintly. "Anyhow, that's what I was thinking about." Quietly, pure alto voice blending with the rhythm of hooves, chased by the wind, she began:

_...As gentle tides go rolling by,  
Along the salt sea strand  
The colours blend and roll as one  
Together in the sand.  
And often do the winds entwine  
To send their distant call,  
The quiet joys of brotherhood,  
And love is lord of all._

_The oak and weed together rise,  
Along the common ground.  
The mare and stallion light and dark  
Have thunder in their sound.  
The rainbow sign, the blended flower  
Still have my heart in thrall.  
The quiet joys of brotherhood,  
And love is lord of all._

_But man has come to plough the tide,_  
_The oak lies on the ground._  
_I hear their pounding in the fields,_  
_They drive the stallion down._  
_The roses bleed both light and dark,_  
_The winds do seldom call._  
_The running sands recall the time_  
_When love was lord of all..._

As they descended the knoll, their horse's hooves made moon-shaped depressions within the earth, marking the trail behind them. The Drakon River grew larger in their vision: from a circular noose to a long ripple of iron-grey. The dense-packed valley floor was a brown and green mulch of rotting vegetation. It was as if they descended through the dawn: translucent veils of light formed gauzy curtains that transmuted the blood-red orb to a hazy rose lamp. Ravenous howled: a high, mournful sound. A noise like a sigh drifted lightly down from the distant tops of the Dalish trees. Wynne laid a hand gently on the Warden's shoulder.

"I believe you called it," she said, "I think I just heard your lutestrings."

Loghain and Rylock had ridden far ahead - by the time they caught up the Teyrn had dismounted and tied his horse, was pouring a fine powder into four wooden cups. He was squinting into the firepit as they arrived, as though the flames held answers to unspoken questions. Pale smoke drifted gently eastward. It dissipated before it was as high as Ravenous. Instead of the hot mixed grain mash made by Rilian's father, Loghain's breakfast of choice was thick slabs of bread and cheese, with strips of smoked boar. The shredded meat, heavily salted, was mixed with fat and smoked after it was packed in the cleaned gut. Its sharp scent made the mabari's mouth water. Ravenous begged with dignified eloquence. Loghain, chuckling, fed him. Soon he had the mabari eating out of his hand. Rilian shot the dog a reproachful glance.

As the five of them settled down to eat, Wynne said: "Rilian's predicting a storm. What do you think?"

Loghain nodded - looking at the Elf with slightly less disdain than he had done earlier. "It will be heavy." A sharp squall of wind tossed fir needles like a dark green shower of rain. Loghain wolfed down bread, meat and cheese in a few mouthfuls. Before Wynne had had time to massage her aching calves he had risen to his feet. "Let's get moving. I'd like to be down the knoll when the storm breaks."

The descent soon turned sharply steeper. They saw when Loghain's horse slipped, drawing a furrow in the slippery earth, and dismounted.

They came to a point where the grade was easier. A small fountain trickled from beneath an outcropping of rock, meandering like a silken thread to join the iron-coloured snake that rippled below, the muddy opacity of its waters holding the dullness of a rusted shield. For a while they paralleled the stream. Then Loghain gave a short, sharp gesture, indicating they should cross. The grade of the slope eased more. Soon, they were able to remount. One felt the air now: a pulsation that laboured across ground of damp loam, turning the Drakon River to a choppy series of black-and white squares, like a chess-board. On the other side of the river was a wall of thick brooding trunks that marked the edge of the Dalish forest. It was darker. The sky was a shroud of black, plodding clouds. Under her, Rilian's horse shied nervously, pecking at the mulch with quick, erratic hooves. Wynne was proud to find that Lady Silverhair remained quite steady. The horses picked their way carefully through waist-high scrub and gorse. Wynne looked about. Something startled her - a shadow against the dappled darkness. Her heart leapt to her throat before she recognized it was only Ravenous. The dog bounded towards them, circled Rilian, till the Elf relented and reached down to stroke his square slab of a head. A moment later she startled the others by calling triumphantly:

"Spotted!"

A shadow detached itself from deeper darkness. Reluctantly, as though part of the wild, alien landscape. The leathered-armoured archer was small even for an Elven man, but his scarred, shaven head, viper-sharp face and granite-hard presence of purpose were those of a predator. The bone-sharp gauntness of his face - pale as a bleached insect - was set into unyielding planes. Near-colourless eyes seemed to reflect the hues of the forest.

"Pir Surana!" Rilian gave a cheery smile.

The Night Elf returned the greeting with considerably less warmth, thin slash of a mouth twisted in a look of chagrin:

"You couldn't have seen me coming."

Rilian grinned from ear to ear, her Elven face seeming very young, softly-curved and oddly - human - beside this stone-cold killer. "Ravenous' ears were jerking around. They stayed relaxed. It had to be someone friendly. And no-one but a Night Elf could sneak up on Loghain." She scratched behind the mabari's ears. "Big old tattle-tale." Ravenous accepted the affection with a happy bark, wagging his short stub of a tail - an extravagant display that managed to shake his whole backside.

The crags and scars of Loghain's hard-used features twitched in a rare smile: "My compliments. To you and the twenty invisible men surrounding us."

Pir Surana grinned back. The change was radical. In an instant, he was younger, more appealing. He said: "We're not Dalish, but we have some skills. And every man enjoys a brag. Your mabari knows we're here, but not even he's sure exactly where, because the wind's from one direction." He whistled twice. Answers came in quick single bursts, from left to right: a semi-circle of sound that paralleled the curve of the river. The rapid sequence held a sinister, disorienting quality. Wynne tried to count them, but by the fourth - or fifth - she was too confused to continue.

Rilian laughed and winked. "From me, too. But I bet there's only nineteen."

The Night Elf actually smiled at her, flushed with pride.

Rylock was looking chagrined. _She thinks it's a personal failure if she can't do absolutely everything. Or maybe she's thinking of the apostates who could elude her with such skills…_

The four of them, Ravenous and the Night Elves continued to follow the winding river, heading in a south-westerly arc. Thunder muttered. When the rain came, it whirled through the branches from the east on a suddenly raging wind that made the forest groan. After that first roaring gust, the rain softened. It continued as a swirling beauty that lifted dead leaves from the ground, created a whirling arc of life that belied the death-shrouded valley beyond. Purple, green, brown, like some impressionist painting. The translucent droplets came down like the ghosts of arrow-tips, before blossoming like ephemeral flowers as it struck their armour. Tiny little arcs of glittering beaded brightness that Rilian said reminded her of the bubbles within her glass paperweight. It had never rained in the Tower: Wynne had been nine when she last felt it on her skin and middle-aged before it touched her again. She rode in silence, hunched over. The posture was a mental response: her wool and furs could withstand far worse conditions.

As the day wore towards evening droplets of darkness gathered like mist at the edges of the world. The clouds were like heavy, wet black wool.

"I think we should stop," Rilian said, "The Dalish will let us camp with them. We won't get much further in this downpour."

Loghain scowled - iron will clearly warring with the demands of his middle-aged body and Rilian's logic. Finally, reluctantly, he nodded ascent. For Wynne it was not before time. Her entire body felt like a chill iron bar. Only pride had kept her going - she was _not_ going to prove to Rylock that mages were soft, hothouse flowers...

They dismounted and continued to lead the horses on foot. Pir Surnana led them deeper into the forest - through curtains of rain that parted about deeply-fissured, ancient trunks. A grey-and-black bird ghosted through them to land sideways on one of them. The bark, gnarled as an old man's skin, provided excellent footholds for the tiny, needled feet. The dark-green canopy provided shelter. Wynne drew her cloak more deeply about herself, staring downwards at her feet in their mud-caked boots. With each step, they formed little hollows that soon filled up with grey metallic water. The sibilant, shivering sounds encircled her - the smell of wet, damp loam reminded her of her old friend, Ines Arancia. She had thought Ines crazy for staying out in all weathers to tend the herb-garden the Templars allowed her.

As they moved deeper into the forest, the long shadows closed around them. The strange, aloof trees rustled eerily in the erratic swirling breeze. Wynne shivered slightly, knowing that while the Night Elves and Loghain were almost one with such places, she was truly a stranger here. The sounds did not seem hostile exactly - but furtive and alien and unacquainted. A quick glance over to Rilian and Rylock showed her she was not alone. Rylock was moving with the watchful air of a stranger in a strange land...of course, thought Wynne, with a touch of bitterness, she has hunted in such places before. She hunted Aneirin... Rilian, a City girl born and bred, was blundering through with more eagerness than grace. Wynne winced as she underscored the thought by tripping noisily on a branch. An indoor person of books and parchment, Wynne had never realised the wilderness held a beauty all its own. She, Rylock and Rilian watched as Loghain and the Night Elves disappeared from sight: Loghain in his element, his slow powerful gait silent and oddly graceful, his great bow strapped to his back like a living extension of his body. And Pir Surana: a slight, whip-thin shadow beside Loghain's quiet, purposeful bulk - elegant and menacing as a rapier. They seemed part of the woods - shadows only visible as a deeper darkness against leaves that glistened with rain. Irritated with Loghain for just forging ahead and leaving them here, Wynne glared daggers after his back, until no effort would bring her another glimpse.

It gave her great satisfaction to hear the sharp, heavily-accented voice of a Dalish sentry challenge them:

"Our treaty is with the Warden - not you, shem! Nor are you welcome, Hunter Surana, with the company you keep!"

A big, smug smile spread over Rilian's face.

"Wait here," she said, grinning, "I'll smooth things over."

Rilian cut her way through with speed if not grace - Wynne heard raised voices - that low, silvery tone the Warden used when trying to get her own way. She re-appeared a short while later - beaming.

"Mithra says we can stay tonight - even you, Rylock!"

Rylock gave the young woman a quelling glare. Wynne, alarmed, remembered the legends of the Elven Keepers and their ancient lore...

"Knight-Commander," she said, voice clipped and professional, allowing no trace of her private knowledge of this woman to seep into her tone, "You're here with Rilian on Warden business, not Templar business. Remember that."

"I don't need a mage to inform me of my duty," Rylock snapped. "The mission comes first - but I will not be blind."

"No." Despite herself, a trace of silken laughter worked its way into Wynne's voice, "No-one could accuse a Templar knight of blindness."

The blank look Rylock gave her showed the comment had gone over her head. She gave a curt nod.

Rilian seemed to revel in her status as host:

"Have I ever told you the story of how I saved Lanaya's Clan from the Werewolf curse?" she asked brightly.

She had - several times. Wynne had not been among the Warden's party on that quest - Rilian had taken Morrigan, who knew the ways of the Wilds, and Zevran, her fellow Elf - but her young friend had lost no time in telling the story. To Wynne's surprise, Loghain gave a grunt of encouragement. She herself wished Rilian hadn't chosen this particular moment to tell it. Zathrian's role would only serve to confirm Rylock's worst suspicions...

"Look," she said, to distract her, "Those are stone pillars dotted among the trees: the carvings look to be ancient Tevinter in origin."

Rilian's eyes widened, and she traced the stone with a gentle hand. "Lanaya told me the trees are five hundred years old. To a City Elf, that's ancient - but the time of Arlathan was long before. These trees grew up after the Tevinter Empire fell - and now Elves have reclaimed their own." A dreamy smile touched her face - as though Wynne had answered some important question. "It makes me think of a poem Leliana taught me." She went silent a moment, placed her hand on her breast, and recited:

_"…And on the pedestal these words appear:  
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:  
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"  
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay  
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare  
The lone and level sands stretch far away…"_

A fringe of trees hung between them and the forest clearing. Rilian's amber eyes were bright as they approached - she looked back at Wynne, Rylock and Loghain, clearly wishing to share their first sight of the camp.

Wynne gave an involuntary exclamation of pleasure. Nestled in a lush valley, tents spread from one edge to the other in concentric circles. Glass lanterns hanging from branches lit the way, coloured red and green like stained glass windows. They spread an iridescent wash of light in a frozen whirlwind of unearthly hues.

"When I was a child," Rilian said softly, "I dreamed I lived in a world with two suns - one red and one green. The nights were red and the days green."

The valley was dotted with young spruces, dark-green in the rain, gilded with the darkly-sparkling wash of coloured light. The rain-clouds hung heavily over them. Suddenly, for one magical moment, the evening sun peeked out between them. The valley flashed instantly into incredibly vivid green. The lanterns shimmered into ruby. The Tevinter pillars gleamed like white marble in the ghostly luminescence - triangular glimpses of misty, white-capped stone - with the inky black clouds over and around them.

"Oh," gasped Rilian, "Look at that song!"

"I should rather call it a picture," Rylock said, "A song is lines and verses."

"No, silly - a song is no more lines and verses than your sword and armour are _you_. The real song is the soul within them - and that is the soul of an unborn song. I hope I get the chance to write it before..." Her voice trailed off. Her face was quiet, soft and wistful. Following a train of thought Wynne could not guess at, she said:

"I wonder what a soul - a person's soul - would look like? I like to fancy mine as looking like the golden pattern on my armour: the winged vines."

"That," said Rylock disapprovingly, "Is nothing but vanity. We are not supposed to be staring into mirrors in the Golden City. We are as we do."

She strode on ahead, the conversation having clearly used up her store of sociability for the day. Rilian was left staring after her, looking thoughtful.

They were greeted by a Keeper and her First. Rilian explained that Clan Sabrae and Clan Zathrien were camped together. Lanaya had not returned from the army camp, but Elder Marethari made them welcome.

"Andaran atish'an, Grey Warden."

Rilian returned the greeting in slow and careful Dalish, then lapsed into Common to introduce her companions.

Keeper Marethari greeted the Templar and General with cool disinterest - Pir Surana with slightly warmer regard - but met Wynne's eyes with the respect of an equal. Something subtle crackled between them - shared power reached out with curling tendrils. Rylock bristled warningly, managed a perfunctory nod of her head, and stalked away to feed and water her horse, back stiff with the effort at control.

Keeper Marethari was unlike any Elven mage Wynne had ever seen. She was used to elegant Enchanters who glided about the Tower, all cut-glass cheekbones and unreadable eyes. They tended not to show their age - or any emotion whatsoever - a variant of the strange frozen stillness one saw on the faces of Elven servants: a mask or a shield. Keeper Marethari's eyes were dark - beady, glittering black raisins whose lights danced with laughter and cut like arrowy beams. Her nut-brown face was seamed with lines: the green spider-web of her tattoos, lines of laughter, lines of experience. Pale hair as light and fine as spider-silk was blown in all directions by the wind and rain.

"My First: Apprentice Merrill." Wynne found herself swallowed up by enormous green eyes flecked with yellow: ships of gold adrift on a verdant sea. Merrill bowed - a graceful, sweeping gesture that reminded Wynne of a bird alighting upon a branch, delicately poised for flight. Then she straightened up and met the eyes of the much taller Warden:

"Rilian! Oh - it isn't rude to call you by your name, is it? Only - Shianni has told me so much about you I feel as if I know you..."

"Don't worry, Merrill - that's not considered rude where I come from," said Rilian delightedly. The two girls smiled at each other - not as a deliberate politeness but in a spontaneous flowering of comradeship - and the net result was a pleasure that lit the clearing as though sunlight had been poured over it. Rilian started to say something - then stopped, her attention suddenly caught by the heavy gold amulet Merrill wore around her neck.

"I...I have seen that amulet before," she said - and as if her words had called it Wynne felt the current of an alien power: a dark, pulsing heart. "Around the neck of a woman named Flemeth."

A stillness settled upon the gathering. Wynne could feel Loghain's hackles raised like those of an old wolf. Rilian tilted her head up and a little leftward, ears cocked as though trying to catch the echo of an elusive song.

"She told me...she told me: _"We stand upon the precipice of change. The world fears the inevitable plummet into the abyss. Watch for that moment...and when it comes, do not hesitate to leap. It is only when you fall, that you learn whether you _can_ fly." _Rilian paused, hesitated. "She was _not_ wearing it when I killed her."

A collective gasp rippled through the clearing.

"Don't say it!" cried Merrill, eyes huge in her heart-shaped face, "She'll hear you..."

"Nonsense, child," Wynne said bracingly - dismayed to see the Warden had gone quite pale. Rilian suddenly bent, scooped up a handful of dark, damp earth, straightened up - and flung it over her shoulder. It was a variant on an Alienage ritual she had never quite grown out of - no matter how many times Wynne had assured her that neither earth nor salt had any effect on spirits whatsoever.

"A shem gave it to me," Merrill said softly, "One of the Teyrn's refugees. Her name is Emily Hawke. She said Ashabellanar rescued her family in Lothering - brought them safely to Gwaren."

Colour rushed back into Rilian's face. "Oh! That's alright, then - I killed her after that. She's not come back to haunt us after all."

Wynne felt the strands of power curl tentatively outward - the blind seeking of a bulb in springtime, sending its roots into the thawing earth - and wondered.

A group of Dalish archers materialised from between surrounding trees. They'd obviously been ready to attack, if necessary. Now they bounded forward, brandishing double-curved bows, moving so effortlessly, so swiftly, Wynne was reminded of the whistling flight of the hawk. Dressed in cloth that matched the colours of earth and wood, their faces were tattooed in odd, asymmetrical designs.

One - a young man with russet hair and tattoos that looked newer and fresher than the deeply-ingrained ink on the faces of the others - stepped forward to greet Rilian.

"Warden - I knew you'd return! And - what is _that_...?"

"Hello, Cammen," Rilian replied, a big, pleased smile spreading across her face. Wynne could tell she was delighted to be asked. She hefted the crossbow strapped to her back and held it out to him with careful hands. Her only other weapons were small sacks of black powder and twin daggers belted about her waist - the Hurlock General had snapped her longer Dalish blade.

"This beauty was built by me, a pair of Dwarven brothers named Dworkin and Voldrik Glavonak, and a shem noble named Nathaniel Howe. It's based on the design of one Varric Tethras and his friend Gerav, whom Nathaniel met in Kirkwall. I know Gerav too - he's a Carta member who used to trade with my supervisor down the Docks...but you don't want to know about all that!"

Wynne watched as the young hunter studied the sleek, alien object with fascinated eyes. Rilian rotated the chamber, demonstrating the mechanism that allowed six bolts to be loosed in rapid succession.

"And this," she added, missing the narrow-eyed disapproval on the faces of the other Dalish by a mile, "Was my invention. See how I've centred the spyglass at the top. When you look through, you can see for miles. You try... Now - move the small wooden arrow over your target - then turn this dial to add your estimated windage. You'll hit your man ninety-nine times out of a hundred."

The stock of polished mahogany begged to be held - the shining steel bolts and blue-glinting glass dazzled with technical lordliness. Yet it reeked of cold killing. Death in steel and wood: it seemed to want to fire, to flaunt its power.

Another young hunter hawked and spat. "Where is the honour in letting a machine take the place of skill - of years of dedication? You are a good leader, Warden - but not half the warrior your cousin is."

Loghain said nothing - but managed to convey his own disdain with a meaningful heft of his composite longbow: a gleaming six-foot arc of power and grace.

Rilian smiled - a bit wry, a bit hurt. "Nor half the person. And - be sure you treat her right, Cale. But as for the crossbow: darkspawn don't care what kills them. Is my contribution worth less than yours because it's based on intelligence instead of skill?"

Wynne bent close to the young woman - cowl softly brushing the bouncy red hair - pitched her words for Rilian's ears alone: "Is your responsibility less if we lose?"

Rilian's eyes flew open. She drew her arms across her chest - pulled her cloak tighter - compressed herself into a snug, comfortably warm ball. She turned to face Wynne, confiding, peering up beneath her hood. Its shadows emphasised the broad, strong sweep of high cheekbones; the lantern-light illuminated the seeking eyes. Slightly knitted brows lent power to the smallest change of expression.

"Damn," she said softly, "You did it again, didn't you? Made me answer the question I refused to ask myself."

Wynne smiled - a touch of wistful melancholy behind her amusement - and whispered: "Mages have been asking themselves that question for generations." She immediately tightened her lips over the echo.

"Do not worry, Warden," Pir Surana murmured - eyeing the young woman with a warmer regard than he had shown before. A dark grin curved his thin slash of a mouth. "The traditions, dedication and training of chevaliers did not help them against us. The better warrior is the one left standing: that is the definition of war." Too quietly for Loghain to hear, he added, "The General would be only too happy to turn this weapon on Orlais - if he were not also thinking of the Alienages turning it on _him_."

Wynne saw in that instant that the Night Elves had not forgotten Loghain's betrayal - nor, apparently, forgiven. Rilian snorted with laughter.

"I'll make you a deal," she said, eyes sparkling, "I'll teach you to make one - if you teach me stealth?"

"Now?"

Rilian turned questioning eyes to Wynne, who smiled. "I'm sure us old folks will find ways to amuse ourselves while you're gone."

Loghain and Cale were eyeing each other like two stranger dogs, hackles raised: a grizzled old alpha intruding on the territory of a whip-thin young predator.

"Can you do anything with that bow besides show off, shem?" Cale wanted to know.

Bristling, Loghain replied: "We Fereldens could teach you a thing or two about archery."

"That sounds like a challenge, shem." Dark eyebrows were raised; startlingly blue eyes peered from an angular, fierce face painted in geometric designs.

In the end, Loghain, the Dalish hunters, the Night Elves and Rilian all headed for the archery range after feeding and tethering their horses. Wynne took care of Lady Silverhair - then Merrill rather shyly offered to show her round the camp.

Wynne looked into the young, eager face. Merrill was not even five-foot - barely came up to her shoulder - and the gnarled heartwood staff she carried looked sturdier. That, coupled with the enormous eyes and gawky enthusiasm, made her seem very young. But there was no mistaking the spiky green mana field that swirled around her like spring leaves around branches. This was someone she would have been proud to mentor, had fate brought her to the Circle...which, through the formula of association that wove a lifetime's memories to a single tapestry, left her thinking of Aneirin...

"That is very kind of you," she said gently. She wrapped her cloak more firmly about her shoulders and picked her way carefully across the green-glowing, rain-slick grass, scented with sage and violets. She revelled in the valley, emblazoned by the concentric rings of Dalish tents. They were made of thin, pliant leather dyed in bold colours: jewel bright against the duns and greens beyond. The rainwashed blur of the lanterns emphasised the sharper greens and reds of the cloth. Sky-blue was repeated occasionally - intensified elsewhere to sapphire or turquoise. Splashes of yellow and orange made her think of the summer gone by - the summer spent campaigning, when the rugged Ferelden hills would concentrate the sun's heat, turning the Warden's camp to an oven. Merrill explained the leather was also treated with a secret compound of beeswax and plant extracts that made them waterproof.

"It's the same as we use on armour and aravel sails. The legends say a boy made the first piece. He wasn't strong enough to bend a bow - and he was small. But one day he learned to use what the forest gave him and other secret things he discovered - all by himself - to make this material. See: he showed the Elder you don't have to be experienced to be important and useful."

Merrill told her that in winter the tents were double-hung with woollen interior blankets to retain heat. One identified families by the pennon in front of every dwelling or by symbols painted onto the leather. The larger symbol was common to all: for Clan Sabrae, the white antlers of the halla, most precious of creatures. In the centre of the gathering, a much larger tent dominated the rest. Outside, on starkly-cleared ground, an array of carved logs and spread blankets circled a blazing fire. A canopy kept out the rain. An elderly Elven couple were already sat there, while a gaggle of children played at their feet.

"I could give you the rest of the tour?" Merrill offered hopefully, "There's so much more to see."

Indeed there would be, Wynne thought with a little sigh, wanting nothing more than to rest her tired body - and Merrill liked to see it all thoroughly, with an attention to detail that was both loving and obsessive. For instance, to Wynne each tent served the same function: a place where families slept, ate, talked and laughed. Yet to Merrill each was worth looking at closely - each had virtues and drawbacks that required evaluation - each prospered or declined according to factors which she took pains to understand. She knew exactly where the tent pegs were laid, and how many yards of rope they required. She knew which Clan had first conceived the idea of making rope that particular way - and why it was superior to the method used before. The Dalish, she explained, recovered the skills of the past only slowly - and shared them once a decade in a meeting of Clans called the Arlathvhen. Merrill knew which human settlements the Dalish traded with for supplies of salt - and how long they would last in an emergency. And she knew every child they passed by name, parentage, and predilection for mischief.

In short, Wynne discovered she had only two choices: she could cut off the rest of the tour, or let Merrill say whatever she wanted. As with Rilian and her desire to remake the world - Rylock and her faith - or Loghain and his patriotism - there wasn't any middle ground.

_And I? I love the Circle as much as Merrill loves her Clan. To protect it, I became what no mage should ever be. Perhaps we are not so different..._

"I would love to," she said, smiling.

As a result, time seemed to evaporate the way complexities did when she analysed them. She found that in Merrill's company she did very little except smile. The young woman filled her alternately with amusement and affection. Merrill was perfectly capable of distinguishing between good workmanship and bad, between forethought and its absence - but she liked everybody around her, and loved the details she expounded. The more she talked, the more gentle and companionable she seemed. And the more Wynne listened, the more she could feel her tensions and fears going to sleep. To the west, beyond the bordering trees, the Blight seeped towards them like spreading ink, wringing colour from earth and sky, altering everything it touched. To the north-east, preparations for war were being made. But that didn't come near them now: Merrill seemed to carry peace with her wherever she went. She wasn't just amusing, likeable and meticulous: she was a healer. By the time they stood at the western edge of camp, Wynne's legs hurt gently from so much walking, and her boots had rubbed a sore place onto one of her toes, and her heart was full of rest for the first time since Uldred's rebellion. Now, she thought, all she needed was one really good night's sleep, and she would be ready to face the ghosts of Ostagar.

They passed an amazing structure: half-wagon and half-ship. Wooden wheels supported a long galley, carved with windows shaped like arrow-heads. High masts and billowing sails formed a masterwork of sweeping curvature; a red-and-green banner fluttered in the wind, dark and heavy with rain. Wynne thought of a ship, braced to meet a storm.

"This is our aravel - the landship that carries the Clan swiftly and truly. With wind and magic, they cut their way across the landscape like swans across a lake - as though the sails were wings. I cannot wait for Master Varathorn to finish the Warden's gilder!"

Carried on the wings of her own enthusiasm, Merrill led Wynne over to a particularly large tent. Its entire eastern side was thrown open to catch the last of the day's light and as much fresh air as possible. A short distance to the side stood an elongated furnace about five feet high, its fires generating a steady bass rumble. The clay wall sealing the front end portrayed the diamond-white face and glittering antlers of a halla. A ceramic plug filled the mouth opening; another smaller one blocked a hole in the left eye. Heat-shimmer radiated from the furnace in a rainbow shield...the land beyond was obscured and distorted as a vista of the Fade. Little glittering blisters of rain struck the shield and burst apart into steam, with the hissing of a thousand snakes. As they watched, a wiry Elven man with iron-grey war-braids and skin brown as old tree bark yanked the smaller plug to inspect the fiery interior. Looking up, he saw them. He replaced the plug and waited, sinewy forearms folded across an apron streaked with sweat and soot.

"Greetings, stranger. My name is Master Varathorn: smith and craftsman. And you, little Merrill - I never see you anymore."

"You used to make necklaces and jewellery. Now it's just war things. Why would I come here?"

"To brighten my day. Maybe I'll even find time to make a bracelet for you."

Merrill giggled. "This is Enchanter Wynne, who travels with the Warden."

Master Varathorn turned to her. "What can I show you, Enchanter?" he asked formally. It was the reserve all Dalish except Merrill showed with humans: polite, but with the underlying message that friendship did not - and should not - cross racial boundaries. He stepped to a machine and patted it proudly. "As good as any in your cities," he said - with a faint hint of challenge. "A lathe, for arrow shafts. Every one exactly like any other. Do you know anything of my art?"

Wynne hesitated, weighing the narrowed, leaf-green eyes in front of her. She overcame decades of conditioning to let a trace of her healing magic bleed from her hands, knowing the Dalish attitude to magic was unlike any other. The blue glow made the pale rain glimmer like fireflies: water shimmered into a diffuse wash of light.

"I know that the damage done by your wicked toys forces me to use _my _art."

His eyes went wide - a low chuckle escaped him. For an instant, the veil of separation that cloaked him was torn. "I wish my blades had an edge like your tongue!"

Wynne smiled. "I came to ask about the Warden's glider."

"The prototype is ready - but I have not been able to test it. She would need to do that, from high ground. Come - I will show you."

He led them to his wagon, which doubled as his shop. During the day, wares were displayed on long tables outside. Now the wagon was battened down, the wind knocking against the sides with icy fingers. He led them up rain-slick wooden steps that creaked like Wynne's tired knees, opened the door in the back and lit a narrow tapering candle that cast a watery uncertain glow. Inside, the space was one of strange shadows and alluring corners. Finely-crafted toys and tools and treasures were piled high on shelves. Weapon racks were obscure, hulking blacknesses bristling with sharp edges. Shadows leapt and writhed like dark flames as Varathorn moved the candle here and there. Wynne's attention was caught by a long glistening ripple that flowed about a stand like water. It was a chainmail hauberk, made of silverite, lighter and finer than any she had ever seen. She felt the tingle of enchantment in her fingertips: subtly different from the clean white crackle of the lyrium used by the Formari.

"Did you make this?" she asked wonderingly.

A subtle change swept over the craftsman's face. The intensity was too great to escape her, yet as swift and vague as cloud shadow. "There are rituals - special prayers - that date from the time of Arlathan. In that time all Elves possessed the gift of creation. Now our Keepers - our craftsmen - our singers - all possess facets of that gift. Your kind learned these things from us. Learned - or inherited."

Wynne yearned to duel with him - challenge him to say more. Years of being watched by the Chantry - of weighing every word - had bred a caution that was part of her. She said nothing, and he turned away - pointed to an enormous carrying case, hung from the ceiling. Even diagonally, it barely fit.

"The dismantled glider is in there. To keep away prying eyes, I told the Clan it's full of poison spears. Only the three of us know the truth." He winked - the look of one enjoying a good secret. Quiet satisfaction created a shy inner glow. "Tell the Warden she can collect it at first light."

They bade farewell to Master Varathorn, and Wynne descended the steps carefully. The rain fell in baubles of pale light, running down boots and cloak in ephemeral silver snail-trails. There was no smell like wet grass, and at no time was it so full of delicate promise as in the evening. The smell accumulated potency during the day, until the rain at dusk brought out an aroma so robust it fell to the earth, oozing down slopes and into footprints and hollows, filling them like syrup. In this strange and alien camp, the tang filled Wynne with a rending mix of sadness and determination. The suggestion of life and growth strengthened her resolve, even as haunting reminiscences of Ostagar made her ache to abandon the journey. Merrill brought her right to the edge of camp, and she was struck by the sight of long walkways connecting the circling trees, upon which Dalish sentries patrolled. They were disturbingly delicate rope bridges, flung between sturdy branches in airy, graceful openness. She hoped she'd never have to cross one. To the east, the trees of the Brecilian forest were dark - the setting sun having passed behind, leaving them in shadow. They were faceless, hulking, vaguely threatening shapes that seemed to be closing in, reaching with skeletal fingers. To the south was an enormous lake whose chill grey waters gleamed like a giant silver coin.

"It reminds me of an old story: we say there was once a young Dalish who yearned for the glory of the stars. Fen'Harel the Trickster offered him the stars on a silver blanket, in exchange for all the ironbark the Clan possessed. The hunter agreed to the bargain, but when he had given away the precious ironbark, Fen'Harel brought him to a lake at night, where the stars were mere reflections. Keeper Marethari tells me that story as a warning."

The setting sun cast tree-branches as long shadows across the water, turning the glassy smoothness to the shards of a cracked mirror. Droplets of rain made ringlets of shadow: amorphous holes that continuously expanded then collapsed to nothingness.

Merrill pointed out the small island that jutted from the centre of the lake. A curious six-sided hut stood upon it. Seeing her questioning look, Merrill waved her arms happily. "It's a bathhouse - built over a place where steam billows from hot springs. Clan lore insists that cleanliness fights infection. I don't know exactly how - but dirt makes the sick weaker and sometimes causes the smallest wounds to bring death."

Wynne reluctantly acknowledged that she herself did not know more than that. Which was irritating, because one of the chief benefits of growing old in the Circle was knowing more than young apprentices. Then another, darker thought occurred to her:

"Hot springs come from lava - that would make this forest close to the Deep Roads."

"Oh - yes - but Keeper Marethari says the Deep Roads stretch all over Ferelden. There have never been sightings of darkspawn, and there's no shortage of game. Although personally I think the Keeper's main reason for wintering here is to soak her old bones in that hot water!"

Wynne's lips twitched. She hastily strove for a severe expression. "It's very naughty of you to speak so disrespectfully of your Elder."

Merrill giggled.

In a little valley to the north Merrill pointed out the grazing herd of halla. Their fleet curves and shimmering antlers were the very image of grace. "The halla are as important to our people as water. Any shem war-party would be fools to engage our aravel with our team of halla to pull it! Look - there's Elora..."

Merrill started towards a pale-haired middle-aged Elven woman whose facial tattoos were intricate swirls like falling leaves. The woman was kneeling beside one of the creatures, running one hand along the arched, flowing line of the silvery neck. There was some quiet power of mastery about those slender, callused hands; the absorbed down-bent face. The halla shivered all over. Wynne stared into enormous purple-brown eyes flecked with gold. They were strained - the ears nearly flat. She kept a careful distance - not wanting to startle the creature - but after a moment the Elven woman looked up.

"Ah, Merrill, and - stranger...please excuse my lack of courtesy."

Wynne shook her head quickly. "Oh no - don't let me disturb you! I wonder, though, if I could help? I am a mage - and a healer..."

"Hmm. I can find no wound on her - but she is agitated. I'm worried she has been affected by the Werewolf curse. It would not affect her in the same way...but it would still be lethal."

Hesitantly, Wynne came closer - close enough to look into the great eyes, with their oblong irises, long upper lashes, and almost-human intelligence. She murmured soft, inarticulate reassurances. She approached, ran her hand soothingly over the satiny coat.

"There now, I won't hurt you..." At the touch, the halla quieted...as she did with her human patients, Wynne felt suddenly more than herself: she had four strong legs...another heartbeat joined her own - slower, deeper, stronger...her breaths came on the shadow of another's. She felt something lighter and more tremulous than the heavy red darkness of pain - a grey shadow - yet her hands still prickled and burned with the blue-hot wash of lyrium. The halla was not sick - was she supposed to heal her _fear_? Light flickered inside her - it pushed against the shadow - like the play of moonlight on dark water. She could just remember, in her early childhood, hiding in the barn that was refuge from the boy who tormented her mercilessly, afraid of the dark that swallowed up her little candle. It had seemed the dark was stronger - because however fast light travelled, the dark was there before it - but the blue flame had pushed it aside. She had realised the light was stronger - because it existed by itself, and shadows only when something stood before it. With a sudden lift, she felt it take her over: an exhilaration like no other, unless birds felt that way, swooping and gliding. She let herself flow with it, becoming the river of light...and felt the slow withdrawal of something poisonous.

"You did it! You calmed her - I did not think it possible. Now she is ready to tell me what's wrong..."

Merrill was waiting for her - an awed light in her jewel-bright eyes - as Wynne quietly took her leave. "What did you do?"

Wynne found herself explaining - far more patiently than she had done with poor Aneirin - and Merrill answered with stories of her own studies.

In this way, they passed the time while Merrill led her in a roundabout route back to the gathering. Wynne had enjoyed herself so much that when Merrill started to bid her farewell she didn't want her to leave. "Where are you going?" she asked, to forestall her.

This time Merrill's smile was shy in a new way - self-conscious about things that hadn't come up before. "Keeper Marethari likes me to help cook for the Clan. She says just having magic isn't an excuse not to do normal everyday things. And it uses up some of my energy, so I go to bed more easily."

The thought of this earnest young woman learning culinary skills delighted Wynne. Guiltily, she recalled how the mages of the Tower relied entirely on the Tranquil for practical chores. It was as if the divide between those who passed their Harrowings and those who chose the Rite - or had it forced on them - marked the divide between gentry and servant. The mages - so subservient to the orders of the Templars - needed to feel superior to _someone_. Even less honourably, it was the Lucrosian faction who encouraged a certain quota of Tranquil to be created each year. The Chantry had other sources of funds - lands and tithes - but the mages had only the goods traded by the Formari to grant them a modicum of independence.

Not to mention - she herself had been quite happy to rely on Morrigan's skills at hunting and preparing food. The apostate had carried the party: for Wynne had chosen darning as her way of contributing, Rilian, Alistair and Oghren couldn't manage a burned stew between them, Sten had thought it women's work, and Zevran and Leliana had often been away, keeping ears to the ground in major towns.

Impulsively, because Merrill had done her so much good and hadn't asked for anything in return, she leaned forward and gave her a quick hug.

Merrill's eyes widened - she stared at Wynne a moment. Then she ducked her head as though she were blushing. Pleasure seemed to radiate from her like sunlight. "I think you and Keeper Marethari would like each other," she said softly, "She's the only other person who's ever been so patient with me."

Together, Merrill and Wynne waded into the bustle that was the main tent. On the ground outside, what looked like the entire Clan lounged on the log benches and spread blankets. Rain thudded onto the waterproof canopy, but didn't touch them. A massive campfire hissed and blazed as though a rage demon were trapped within; smoke billowed sideways from the shelter, blown into strange cloud-shapes by the wind. Keeper Marethari was stirring what looked like enough stew to feed half the army. Her cheeks were red with heat and exertion; sweat made her silvery-fine strands of hair stick to the sides of her face in streaks. Behind her, Elven men and women clattered about, setting platters and pitchers onto the blankets, bringing pots and tureens and trays. In one corner, two children were arguing hotly: the only part of the discussion Wynne could make out went: "Did so. Did not. Did so! Did not!" An elderly man fixed a string to a beautifully-carved lute, testing its qualities...two young hunters discussed something intently, raising their voices to make themselves heard.

For a second, the clamour seemed so intimidating - so at odds with the peace inside her - Wynne was tempted to turn away. Nothing in her life in the Tower had prepared her for this.

But then Keeper Marethari raised her head, saw Wynne together with Merrill, and smiled. Her pleasure changed the meaning of the din. Suddenly, Wynne understood that the Keeper was in her element, flourishing precisely because her Clan were so busy, so noisy, so full of themselves and each other. And then Wynne understood that the clamour was just another form of peace: hot and hectic, of course - not particularly restful to a novice like herself - but completely without fear.

The hunters had returned - and brought back an enormous wild boar. Wynne saw Loghain being congratulated, demonstrating his killing shot with an uncharacteristic flourish. Cale Mahariel, looking a touch put out, had sat down and was placing a set of carved ivory pieces upon a black-and-white checked board with delicate care. Wynne noticed with a touch of amusement that half the pieces were carved to represent Templars and clerics; the other half were Elven archers and mages. The two large pieces at opposite ends of the Elven ranks were aravels. Cale sent Loghain a challenging gesture - clearly wishing to test him at something else. The Teyrn grunted and settled down to play.

Rilian had swapped her crossbow for a longbow she carried awkwardly on her back - Pir Surana was holding Dworkin's invention.

"Ah - did you get in some practice?" Wynne asked her.

Rilian's face crumpled; a plaintive note crept into her voice. "I try and try, and it's just sad. Arrows go everywhere - as though the birds whose feathers fletch the shafts take control and fly them in all directions. Loghain is calling me Cloudkiller." She gestured at him with her sharp chin and crinkled her nose.

Rilian returned the longbow to its rightful owner and she and Wynne sidled forward to watch Merrill help the Keeper with the boar. The young Warden's eyes rounded when Merrill pressed a fine steel knife into her hands. She held it limply - then squared her shoulders, set her jaw, and gamely made to remove a ham. Merrill practically screamed at her to stop. Rilian obeyed with pitiful eagerness, and Merrill took over, demonstrating. She cut circles around all four legs, just at the knees joints. Another cut circled the neck, a bit forward of the shoulders. From there, she slit down the length of the body. Smaller lines were drawn from the leg cuts to join the body cut. Then she showed Rilian how to slip the knife under the hide and, lifting a small section at a time, separate it.

"We use all parts of the animal," Merrill explained she worked. "The hide can be made into boots...the sinews into cords; bladder and stomach into water-containers. The hair can make brushes - the tusks: well, you see Cales's chess pieces. I have a beautiful ivory comb. Most important is the fat - for salves, for candles, for cooking."

In a short while, the hide sagged between two poles like a bloody, hairy hammock. Rilian stared at the skinned animal in frank horror.

"_This_ is where my favourite pork scratchings come from?"

"City Elf," Merrill giggled, rolling her eyes, "Pork doesn't grow in shem shops, you know."

Showing no mercy, she had Rilian open the body cavity. She made her remove the liver, producing a cloth for her to lay it on. She cut away the lard from the kidneys. "Looks healthy. Already fattened up for winter." Merrill divided the rest of the meat between Keeper Marethari's stew and trail rations for the trip to Ostagar. She made a smaller fire to render the lard, then darted back to her tent. She returned with a well-used leather bag. Scrabbling around in its depths, she retrieved a bundle of willow-bark strips and a squat ceramic jug that contained garlic. She crushed the garlic to a pulp with a small mortar and pestle. Willow shavings and garlic went into the pot with the lard.

In the end all that was left was the offal. Rilian looked at it and swallowed noisily. An unfortunate shift in wind direction sent the odour of blood straight up her nostrils. She gagged, turned green, and moved backward with uncharacteristic speed and grace. Then she stopped - noticed Merrill's meaningful look - and blanched.

"Why me?" she wanted to know.

"Leader's privilege," answered Merrill chirpily. Wynne was blunter: "Because Loghain and the hunters killed the animal, Merrill is cooking and I'm an old woman."

Rilian turned pale - looked around for help and, finding none, gathered the stinking mass into a bundle. She hurried away, desperate to be rid of it.

Merrill rummaged in the leather bag once more. This time she produced a box as long and wide as her hand and about two fingers deep. It held a flour-fine powder. Measuring carefully, frowning in concentration, she added it to the mixture. Seeing Wynne's interest, she said: "Valerian. We call it heal-all. It relaxes the muscles."

Wynne laughed. "Do I seem all that tense?"

"Not you. Your poor Templar, though. When I was on my way to my tent, I passed her and invited her to our gathering. She looked at me as though I were an approaching darkspawn and said she preferred an early night. She was setting up her tent when I left."

"Ah, yes," said Wynne, with a wry smile, "Good of the Knight-Commander to do that for myself and the Warden, since we three will be sharing."

"Oh no!" Merrill protested, eyes wide. "I mean - Rilian can share with the Templar: but you're an Elder! And a healer. You will have my tent - I will share with the Keeper."

Wynne was careful to hide a smug smile.

Merrill stirred the melted lard, sniffed judiciously, tasted the mixture. Wynne watched in a silence so companionable the aching and burning of her muscles slipped away. She nodded off, head lolling.

When she woke, Rilian had returned.

"The cuts I mean to smoke for you and your party are soaking now," Merrill said brightly. "With the army rationing, I don't have enough salt for a brine, so I've made a hot pickle."

Rilian met Merrill's too-innocent smile. The feathery red brows went up. "You laced it with peppers, didn't you?"

Merrill laughed. "Lots. It preserves the meat."

"Where is this poison?"

Merrill pointed at a waterproof basket. Rilian lifted the lid cautiously, sniffed the brew inside. Gasping, she stepped back and clapped the lid back on. "Murder," she breathed.

Archly, Merrill dipped a slender finger into the liquid, tasted it. She blinked rapidly, then sighed. "Ooh good. Just right." Her eyes sparkled. Wynne knew it was as much from tears as high spirits.

"It's even hot for you. It'll fry us poor shems and flat-ears."

"Maybe. But what a way to go, right?"

Rilian giggled.

Merrill added, "There's mint and thyme in there too. It's not just peppers. You'll love it."

"Sure." Rilian's exaggerated eyeroll sent Merrill into gales of laughter.

Before long, humans, Night Elves, City Elf and Dalish were eating together companionably. The campfire glimmered in a red-gold dance. Cale managed to defeat Loghain in chess, and Loghain drowned his sorrows in his bowl of stew. Wynne sat with as much grace as she could manage upon a log, wooden bowl in her lap, while Rilian sprawled in front of her, lying on her side with the indolence of a noble - or a small child - polishing off her helping with the famous Grey Warden appetite. Loghain finished his stew and went over to Wynne, Rilian, and the Keeper.

"I want to thank you for your shelter and supplies," he said to Marethari, "And to tell you of my strategies for the Dalish and Ferelden archers during the defence of Ostagar. Perhaps you can think of something I've missed."

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Wynne understood it was unheard of for Loghain to miss anything - or to ask military advice of an Elven mage. It was a sign of his gratitude - the greatest courtesy he could think of. Keeper Marethari looked a little sceptical. Nonetheless she nodded. Clearly, concisely, Loghain began to outline his specific arrangements.

Wynne couldn't absorb them. In fact, she heard only every third word - the rest was lost in the chorus of bickering that had broken out between the two squabbling Dalish children: "Keeper, it's her fault!" - "No, it's his fault!" - "She did it first!" - "He did it first!" And she couldn't help but notice that even Marethari appeared more interested in this than in Loghain's preparations. Feeling vaguely irresponsible - but not enough to worry about it - she relaxed and let her thoughts drift on the tides of the Fade that washed gently through the back of her mind like a dream of colour.

The rest of the evening went smoothly, albeit strangely, as the threads of understanding between Elf, human, mage and non-mage reached out delicately and entwined into a fabric fragile as gossamer thread. The knitting metaphor was hers, Wynne thought - Rilian would have described it as separate musical notes forming a single chord. If the conversation was sometimes a shade forced, it was never without warmth. Droplets of rain glimmered through the dark framework of sky and branches, thrumming upon the canopy that sheltered them. The circle of firelight formed a cosy orange glow that gilded it to molten gold. The setting sun was a flaming arc of red and purple. Rilian sat up, wrapped her arms about her shins, and stared silently, caught in that splendour. One hand stroked the mabari's soft, bristly fur...the dog raised his voice in a howl that melded with her misted dreams and soared.

The elderly Elven lute player took centre stage; commanded the gathering. A fine tremor shook his hands - but the rich timbre of his voice revealed a wealth of experience, of years of perfecting his craft. Rilian listened in hushed awe as the dance of music and firelight curled around them. The entire gathering followed suit, listening to his story of the Dread Wolf.

"That was wonderful," Wynne said to him afterwards. The storyteller looked at her blankly for a moment - and Wynne caught the intimation that he felt as she did when coming out of the trance of magic to find herself, once more, cast down into the grey rain-swept world. Then his seamed face crinkled in momentary suspicion. _Ah_, Wynne thought, _while many Dalish have thawed towards us, this man will never accept humans..._

"Elder Sarel: this is Enchanter Wynne, a healer from the Circle of Magi," Merrill introduced her - the pride in her voice clearly showing she expected him to treat Wynne with respect. Only now, even more troublingly, suspicion had been replaced with - something else? A flicker of...recognition?

"Enchanter Wynne? I know that name. The stranger - Aneirin - spoke of you."

Icy shock grasped Wynne's heart like a fist.

"You - you've seen - no, it's not possible!" she choked out. "He was dead. The Templars killed him." _Rylock killed him..._

"Nonetheless, he lives. He makes his home outside our camp. He tasked me to give you this."

Lost in the blurred sight of the space between the storyteller's face and her own feet in their mud-caked boots, Wynne took the amulet in silence.

"And to tell you he is not angry, nor hurt anymore."

A gentle arm fell about her shoulders. Rilian hugged her, the soft tickle of her breath blowing Wynne's fine pale hair into patterns like falling thistledown. Rilian had been the only person to whom she had told that story.

Wynne finally found courage to meet the storyteller's eyes. They were the pale, lucent green of a river on a misty morning, and hid secrets the way the water's quiet surface hid its bounty.

"Is that why he stayed away from camp? For fear the Knight-Commander would recognise him? I would not have let her..."

"No - that's not the reason. We share food, but the Keeper does not allow him to live with us."

"Because he's not Dalish?" Wynne asked sharply, angry and disappointed. She had expected better of the Keeper.

The storyteller's next words were a bodyblow.

"No. Because no man survives a sword through the chest. Not without - intervention."

The swirling noise and colour and life of the camp seemed to be folding in on itself, like the petals of a closing flower. Reality seemed to leach away, thinned and bled white.

"An - abomination?"

"He's not!" Merrill blurted out furiously, glaring at both Keeper and storyteller. "I take him food - and he is kind and sane and decent! Even if he were saved by a demon, what would it matter? Demons are just spirits - like honour or joy. It's not their fault they are what they are."

"But all spirits are desire demons of a kind, child," Marethari said quietly, "Indeed it is the ones that represent virtues that are the most dangerous. Rage - Lust - Pride - can be overcome. What mortal could resist the promise of Valour - of Justice - of Faith? Yet these can only be a shadow and a thought: because true valour, true justice, true faith, come from within - though suffering and struggle."

Unease crawled like ants along Wynne's spine. She had never considered that before. She did know that while these pale shadows might be completely harmless in their own world, once uprooted they were vulnerable to the vagaries of the physical realm: the world of sensation - the temptations - the violent emotions of their hosts...it was why she kept herself aloof, and under guard. She had shared her secret with only one person - and Rilian demonstrated her loyalty now: a loyalty that Wynne appreciated more than she could express:

"Who can judge another person's soul?" the Warden countered fiercely, "Only the Maker - the Creators, you would say - can do that. I say we can only judge by actions. It is madness and cruelty that define abominations. If those are lacking, if the person remains himself, then that's good enough for me. A bad tree cannot bear good fruit, nor a good tree bad fruit."

Wynne could only hope that Loghain had not guessed her secret. She knew he was not above using the knowledge to make her his personal weapon, holding the Chantry's sword over her head as she suspected he planned to do with Jowan. And Rylock - Rylock must never know. It was not only her Sword of Mercy Wynne feared: it was the look of betrayal in those dark eyes. Rylock already suffered shame over what they had done on that night of grass and darkness - if she knew the truth, she would feel as though she had lain with a snake: as if the high, unlovely, unloving intelligence of a demon had been watching her the whole time...a reminder of what that long-ago Blood Mage had done to her.

Keeper Marethari was looking from the Warden to Merrill with a strange expression: a mingling of affection and sorrow in her dark, bright eyes.

"I should like to tell a story," she said, "A story about a tree and its fruit."

She passed into the circle of firelight and raised her arms. Fingers fragile as leafless twigs traced intricate gestures. Her quiet presence of purpose commanded the eyes of all. The dull red glow of the fire painted her skin like ash.

_"Long ago, in the time of Arlathan, the world and stars were held within the branches of a tree of silver: the Tree of Life."_

Wynne remembered the Mountain of the Sacred Ashes - how the veins of lyrium had run like streams of silver through the rock: like the branches of a tree...

"It's like our religion," Rilian whispered excitedly, "The Golden City - the streets with music for cobblestones, and banners which flew without wind. They say the Maker formed the world out of the Waters of the Fade. I like the Tree better. Did you know I used to dream that the marbles my mother gave me were really worlds, somehow huge and tiny at the same time?"

_"And the Creators made Elves their first-born: never-dying, never-changing. But with the creation of the second-born - the younger, hungrier race of men - time and death bled into the world that had been ageless."_

The sun was descending in a blaze of glory, turning the leaves of autumnal trees into scarlet candleflame forms. They writhed in the wind like sulky little demons; fell from branches to float in puddles of rainwater like delicate curling ships. The branches seemed to hold up the forest canopy like strips of lead in stained-glass windows. The glass would be green in springtime, Wynne mused - and remembered the green filigree of leaves that had brushed against the third-floor Tower window - how she could see but not touch - how squalls of wind had driven icy needles of rain to strike the glass. It had made her uncomfortable - a reminder that in the world outside the timelessness of the Circle, the seasons changed. It was easy to forget that - to become lost in the forever of dusty parchment and engrossing studies and unchanging routines...until that window at night threw up her reflection: showed her the first line on her forehead - her first silver-white hair...

Wynne vividly remembered those milestones of life - more vividly for the bubble in which she had been forced to live: the moment she first came to the Circle and left childhood behind forever - the wonderful hour when the touch of another mage changed her from girl to woman - the chilling hour when she faced that dark mirror and realised that youth was behind her. The setting sun had seemed blood-red - an enemy that chased her, always coming up behind her - itself unchanged, while she was twenty-four hours older. A little shorter of breath, and one day closer to death. And every one of her son's birthdays had stabbed her like a knife through the heart.

He would be twenty-two now.

_"There were those among the People who said that this was simply the way of things: that there was a time to be born and to die, to remember the past and adapt to the future. That nothing was forever: that lives rose and fell like trees, like...like wheat, even brief as that is. That the end of immortality is the beginning of life. But others would not listen. They would not admit their immortality failed - that their children might not have all they had been given. So they hatched a plan to bind their lives to the life of the Tree itself...using their own blood."_

"It's like Zathrien's Curse!" Rilian whispered excitedly, "When he created the Lady out of nature and thought - and bound them together - and did not die."

_"But such a half-life brings a curse, and a price. Those who had done this lived forever - but as watchers from the other side of the Veil: gazing down upon the life they envied, but could not touch. All they could do was tempt mankind to make the same mistake - and spread their taint to the living world."_

"In blackest envy were the demons born," Rilian quoted from the Chant, "Was it really Elves who first tempted the Tevinter magisters? Is that why Blood Magic doesn't work on Wardens - because demons and taint come from the same roots? Is that why the taint writhes and twists in my head like a Song?"

"It's just allegory." Merrill's lower lip jutted petulantly. "Keeper Marethari doesn't know herself why the People lost everything. She's telling that story as a warning."

Softly, Rilian said: "I should like to tell a story now, if I may? Because if Elves played a part in starting the Blights they also played a part in ending them. I told you about Garahel the first time I met you - but I haven't spoken of one who came before. Her name was Vhena - and she was one of the original Wardens who founded the Order at Weisshaupt..."

Rilian moved to the centre of the gathering. Rilian was a lanky, gawky young woman...but storytelling created a strange alchemy that transformed her to a creature of grace. She stood with head cocked, lips parted in a fierce and tender smile.

"_Vhena was born after the fall of Arlathan - but before Andraste and Shartan rose against the Empire and forged a new homeland in the Dales. But neither she nor her Clan had ever been slaves. They were Wilder Elves - looked down on by Elven lords and called barbarians by humans. She had come to the Anderfels as a young woman, fleeing with her family to escape the Blight. Vhena was considered a dreamer among her people, because she longed for the gift of flight. This was why she was so good with the bow. When she released an arrow, she became that arrow..."_

Loghain gave a meaningful snort, and Rilian blushed crimson. She recovered composure an instant later, resisting the urge to retort.

_"...Vhena's desire for the sky brought her to the highest levels of Weisshaupt Fortress. There among the wind and snow she came to know the aerie's oldest residents: the griffons. It was she who first learned the art of griffon taming, and she who taught the fledging Grey Wardens..."_

Rilian raised her arms as though grasping reins. She was taut, as though poised on the brink of intense and deadly action; her amber eyes were dark and liquid - their soft metallic glimmer drew her in until it seemed she must flow, like light, towards dilated pupils. Flame-shadows wreathed her body like a shower of falling leaves; an aura of power and strength shimmered around her, as fearsome - yet as achingly temporal - as the warmth of the fire.

Rilian went on to describe how the griffon riders won their first victory at the Battle of Nordbotten.

_"...As a Warden, Vhena bore no children - but her legacy lives on. After word spread that nearly four thousand darkspawn had been killed, their black blood forming a lake of death that spread for miles, without a single Warden being slain, volunteers from all over Thedas rallied to join them. One hundred years later, the first Archdemon was defeated at the Battle of the Silent Plains. And Vhena's Clan did more than win a world: they made the Dalish what they are today. For when the Chantry forsook its bargain with Shartan, it was the Wilder Elves who took in the survivors of Halamshiral, and taught them the ways of the forest..."_

Merrill's eyes were pools of green delight. "That's a wonderful story! Thank you," she added softly, "For giving us this piece of our past. We have lost so much." She barely breathed the last, but the pain in the words thrummed in the air. Wynne thought of her own losses, and the ghosts of the life she hadn't lived.

Rilian smiled dreamily. "Sometimes I think all legends are fabulous, intricate references to something...something which cannot be grasped. Which can only be approached in symbols."

Sarel was more cautious. "It's still important to sort truth from myth. I find it hard to believe a City Elf could know more of our past than we do. Where did you hear this story, Warden?"

"Alistair told it to me - my fellow Warden."

Wynne wondered if the others could hear the naked yearning in her voice when she said the name.

"A shem!"

"Stories don't care who tells them - or who we pass them onto. Oh - I thought like you, once: we in the Alienage look down on blood-traitors as much as the Dalish. Then I met one of my own kin - and his human woman - and their child. And all I could see was his father's soft russet curls - his blood, his character, his teachings and his history. And her work-hardened hand, tickling that tiny belly, as he rested in the crook of her arm. I have listened to my bard mentor sing a song of mourning for our Elven mothers: hers and mine." Even as she absorbed this revelation about Leliana's parentage, Wynne noticed the unreadable look that passed between Rilian and Marethari:

"What will survive of us is love."

The fire burned to a pale echo then died away; the Clan dispersed into smaller gaggles, families heading towards tents, young lovers giggling in nearby hollows. Wynne was rather glad of the blanket of darkness that shrouded them - even as she knew herself for an old hypocrite. Loghain moved off to set up the tent he was sharing with his men: the old soldier was accustomed to lack of privacy on campaign, and taking all their tents would have been impractical. Rilian had oh-so-reluctantly been forced to leave her golden monstrosity behind. Wynne, Rilian, Marethari and Merrill moved off together, picking their way through the darkened camp. Rilian's mabari yipped and circled them, darting between the little quartet, away and then back again, chasing shadows.

By now the rain had stopped, the clouds emptied and dispersed into grey wispy shimmers. Droplets still sparkled on the sodden grass and the air tingled with moisture. Distant stone pillars jutted into a sky of black velvet: eerie, numinous. Starlight formed a glittering net over the forest. Shafts of moonlight shone through the ageless patience of the trees to centre them in silver-white luminosity. The waxing moon was nearly complete: an unfinished and radiant attempt at wholeness - an almost-moon that shone down open squat shadowy tents, dark hollows and pools of water - brilliant and colourless and ephemeral.

"Oooh, look," Rilian said happily, "Someone's set up my tent for me. Well, I love you all, but I'm so tired I need to hit the hay..." She gave a skip, a leap - and flung herself through the tent flap straight onto the shadowy bedroll.

"Rilian - wait -" was all Wynne managed to say before a thud and yelp shook the tent all over.

"Aaaahh! It's me, Rylock..." A rip in the tent fabric exposed the silver glint of naked steel - in moments, a flailing Elven arm had widened it, pushing so hard the entire tent collapsed inward like a deflated sheep's bladder. Rilian staggered from the chaos, right arm windmilling and left clamped to the side of her neck. The mabari raised his head and howled: a thin, worried whine.

An icy chill shook Wynne before she realised it was only the Warden's jaw that was cut, not her throat. She rushed forward, healing at the ready, limning her hand and the Warden's jaw in a soft and soothing light. Rilian stared at her with round eyes. Now that the danger was past, the mabari appeared more sympathetic than concerned; he bumped gently against the Warden's side, and Rilian reached down to stroke the wiry bristles of his fur.

Rylock emerged from the tent, clad only in a thin shift, Knife of the Divine glinting in her right hand. Wynne took a moment to wonder how Rylock's hair could still be neat - and how she still managed to look as though she could take on half-a-dozen enemies single-handed. Perhaps it was the taut grace of her stance: controlled economy of movement punctuated with sharp, decisive gestures. Perhaps the scars that criss-crossed her limbs. Only some had come from mages and demons - the rest were sword-cuts, gained during the maelstrom of instruction designed to make her more a sword than a person. _A sword in the Chantry's hand..._ Wynne thought, with a complex inward shudder. She knew of the dangers and privations and hardships visited on Templar recruits - had seen the twin mottos carved into the grey stone of their complex in Denerim: _I Serve_ and _We Are Born To Die_.

Rylock met the Warden's eyes - took in the sight of Wynne healing the gash she had aborted only just in time. "I could have killed you."

Her tone was clipped, her face expressionless. But her dark eyes looked oddly brittle. Wynne remembered the eighteen-year-old recruit who had first come to the Tower - all spit-and-polish - plain face marked by its purity of thought and eyes lit from within by tamped-down, semi-crushed yearning: the sombre desire to do right as she understood it. As the only female Templar in the Tower, she had been ordered to attend the birth of Wynne's child - and to take him away. She had said, briskly:

"As a Chantry child myself, I know that your son is fortunate. Not many are blessed with such a spiritually nourishing start to life." Even through the maelstrom of rage and grief, Wynne had understood that her intent was kind: Rylock honestly believed herself luckier than children raised with mere material commodities like comfort and affection. It had been two years later when the demon-possessed mage had murdered Rylock's comrade Ser Guy but left her alive - just. After months of recovery and a spell in Aeonar - mandatory for all those touched by Blood Magic - Rylock had returned: hollow-eyed, twitchy, with the too-thin, too-taut look of someone who lived on the edge of readiness and seldom paused for either food or sleep. Wynne remembered the young Templar's warnings about First-Enchanter Remille - dismissed by Greagoir's predecessor as paranoia. _It isn't paranoia if it turns out to be true..._

And she remembered the deadly instincts that had seen Rylock react to Aneirin's mind-blast - which he had done to get away, as any desperate fourteen-year-old would - with a fatal strike. _Because if you take even one second to think about how you're going to handle the apostate, you could be dead - and not only will you be dead but your comrades will be dead and the mage will have escaped..._

"Yep - your apostate-hunting reflexes are really humming," Rilian told her brightly, "And you're also the only person I know who can look menacing when dressed in just a nightshirt. Don't feel bad, though - it was my fault. Flemeth told me: "_Do not hesitate to leap_" - Rilian intoned this in a fair approximation of that ancient, knowing, cruel voice; smooth and dry as Orlesian white wine - "But I guess that advice doesn't apply to occupied bedrolls." She gazed mournfully at the wreckage of the tent: collapsed like an old wine-skin atop tangled rigging. "I didn't realise the three of us were sharing. Sorry, Wynne - it'll take a good while to get all this back up."

"Oh - don't worry about me," Wynne assured her - lips twitching in a valiant attempt to control a big, smug smile - "I am to share with Keeper Marethari and young Merrill."

Rilian's eyes widened enviously - Rylock's face turned to vinegar. Rilian took one look at the Templar's expression and burst out laughing:

"Well - don't do anything we wouldn't do! Three mages in a tent - what could possibly go wrong? _Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble_... Don't worry, Rylock - we can always hang a sprig of garlic outside ours!"

"Grow up," Rylock muttered in disgust and turned away, looking almost peevish as she replaced the tent poles in the ground with more force than strictly necessary. Rilian's idea of helping was to sit perched on a log with arms around her knees, calling out instructions that even Wynne could see were wrong and that Rylock ignored anyway. The mabari's idea of helping was to run in circles all around the Templar, fetching sticks and yelping in glee. One mud-caked paw batted the cloth as she raised the structure, widening the tear. Rylock uttered a quiet hiss like steam from a kettle, but forebore to comment.

"Good night," Wynne called sweetly, heading away with Merrill and the Keeper. Rilian gave a cheerful little wave. The tone of Rylock's "good night" would have spoiled the best night in the world.

Wynne's lips finally quirked in the smile she had held in. The Dalish certainly knew how to treat an Elder - and a mage...

Merrill's tent formed an antechamber to the Keeper's. A beautiful drape made entirely of small glittering gems separated them. Individual stones were threaded onto strings that hung from the ceiling.

"Did you make that?" Wynne asked the young mage, impressed. It must have taken her years to collect all the gems and days of painstaking work to thread each string. They tinkled faintly in the breeze like wind-chimes.

"I did," Merrill answered delightedly as she lit a candle for her guest and plumped a woven pillow. "In sunlight, it becomes a living rainbow." The candlelight fell softly upon a carving hung along one wall - a representation of a woman with a staff in one hand and a nimbus of light around the other. A free-standing set of wooden shelves housed a collection of herbs and plants, meticulously labelled: lovage, elderflower, iris, anise, dittany, hellebore, fennel, rue, dill, hemlock, belladonna, rosemary... I wish I could introduce her to Ines, Wynne thought, smiling at the image of those two working together. Her attention was caught and held by the wooden carving of a bird that Merrill had placed upon the top shelf. Plain wood, unpolished, yet incredibly beautiful. The delicate detail was perfect, down to the last feather on the wings. The candleflame swayed as Merrill gently placed it beside the bedroll, and shadows rippled across each etching, bringing the feathers to warmth and life. The bird was poised for flight: wings spread and eager head raised. Wynne could almost feel the yearning to take off and soar into the skies. Yet there was something hauntingly sad about it. Was it because, trapped by the limitations of its own wooden form, it never could? Wynne asked Merrill where she had acquired it. Struggling to conceal her pride and present a picture of nonchalance, Merrill replied it hadn't been that difficult: she had whittled it herself.

"It must be wonderful to create something by your own hands, your own skill - without magic. I wish I could do that."

Merrill smiled: a ripple of quicksilver with a layer of sadness behind it. "That's an interesting co-incidence. I was thinking of you in the Circle - the studies you told me of - thousands upon thousands of books all adding to an unbroken history. Our people have only fragments. I wish I could do that."

She gazed around the cosy living space, green eyes drifting off into a wan, inward-looking distance. "I hope," she added, in a voice so low and soft and wistful that Wynne looked at her curiously, "I never have to leave my home."

"Why should you?" Wynne asked, startled. Merrill's gaze strayed to the far corner - to a drape patterned with flowers and vines - hung over what she assumed to be a portrait.

"I will show you tomorrow," Merrill promised softly, "It is past time we slept."

Wynne did not need telling twice. Merrill wished her goodnight and quietly withdrew. The candlelight filled the tent with a comforting yellow glow. Wynne used the chamberpot placed thoughtfully nearby, then took off her robes, slipped into her nightshirt, blew out the light and nestled into clean blankets that smelled of sweet herbs. As soon as her head touched the downy pillow, the peace inside her seemed to rise up and swell outward. It reached across the Dalish forest - out to their companions in the army camp - backward into the blue-deep wash of the Fade that ebbed and flowed across her mind. Consciousness bobbed atop the sea of mana like a swift-winged ship, almost ready to surrender. She looked up, charmed to see that Merrill had hung little carved halla above her bedroll. They swayed - took on life for her - and Wynne remembered she had done something very similar with wooden horses above her bed in the barn. She had dreamed of a knight on a white charger who would carry her away from the family who had made it clear they did not want her...and, she thought, with a sleepy smile, one had - even if not precisely in the way she had intended...

Silence and rest spread so far in all directions that they carried her away.

Wynne woke, slowly and softly, to the dawn chill on an uncovered shoulder, the rhythmic, mournful cry three-note cry of a bird - short-long-short, rising and falling - the muffled bustle of camp and the murky wash of greenish-gold light that streamed through gaps in the tent leather, creating the impression of being submerged in undulating water. She dozed in half-dreaming contentment while little bright echoes of the Fade danced through her mind in colourful array. At last, a tentative voice threaded through the peace like curling tendrils:

"Wynne - would you like me to bring you some breakfast?"

"Oh - yes, please," she answered - feeling a little guilty to be waited on by Merrill, but enjoying the hospitality nonetheless. Merrill pushed open the tent flap and luminous sunlight flooded in, warm and thick as honey, drenching her. The breakfast was delicious: freshly-caught, lightly-steamed fish flavoured with mint and thyme. When Wynne finally rose - chagrined to realise she had slept late - Merrill hovered in a kind of sombre eagerness by the drape on the far side. Wynne studied the ornate cloth curiously: velvet flowers and vines curling around the delicate silver branches of a tree.

"I promised to show you something last night. The reason I might have to leave home."

Merrill pulled back the drape to reveal - not a portrait, but a cracked, dust-shrouded mirror. Eerily, the glass did not seem flat, but deep as time...Wynne was reminded of Lake Calenhad - of the swift, sinister grace of the creatures that lived beneath the surface. Here one minute and gone the next, they made the mind distrust the eye. Vulturous shadows writhed within.

"It's an Eluvian," Merrill explained. "A piece of the past."

Heavy barking outside - pounding paws - light, quick footsteps following. "Ravenous - don't! Oh, Wynne, I'm sorry..."

The mabari bounded through the tent-flap, with Rilian trailing ineffectually behind. Merrill quickly closed the drape - as though the revelation were too much for her self-consciousness, her dreams too private and fragile.

"Did you and Rylock sleep well?" Wynne asked the Warden, not without some mischief.

"Oh - well, not exactly. I'd been so tired, but all that fuss woke me right up...I lay awake for hours and thought of the most surprising things. When I finally drifted off, the Archdemon came and stared me in the face until I got so frightened I screamed. Rylock was awake anyway - she doesn't seem to sleep any better than I do. So I told her all about life in the Alienage, about Mother Boann and Ser Otto, about Habren and that fateful Landsmeet. The hours just flew by."

Wynne wondered what state she would find the Templar in, and suppressed a guilty chuckle. She turned back to Merrill - yearning to re-open the subject of the mirror...but the moment had passed.

"I'll help you pack your glider onto your horse," Merrill offered Rilian, and Wynne followed the two young women out of the tent. Merrill, Wynne and Rilian headed over to Master Varathorn's smithy, with Ravenous chasing falling leaves in front, and the two Dalish helped Rilian lash what looked like a bundle of giant sticks onto her horse. The swish of rope and rigging contributed a harsh whisper. Then Merrill skipped off to pack the trail rations, while Wynne and Rilian led their horses down to the pure blue circle of the lake.

The morning sky was living green translucence crackling with sunlight. White clouds were thick and heavy, like finest cream. The Tevinter stone glimmered in the shifting dance. The light plunged obliquely into the rippling curtains of trees, striking darks and lights that worked intricate, unceasing changes. It played about the wine-dark leather armour of Loghain and Rylock, who waited by the lake, watering their horses. Loghain stood half in shadow: a grizzled, dark-shrouded old wolf watching from cover. Rylock stroked the satiny brown coat of her horse with one scarred hand. Her angular face was pale, her eyes dark-rimmed...but for all that she looked oddly - contented. Perhaps she was merely glad to be riding away from this camp of apostates - but, strange as it seemed, Wynne guessed she had found with the Warden something like the peace Wynne knew in Merrill's company. Rylock half-listened to Rilian burble on about the hang-glider with the expression of someone who has found - unexpectedly - something they had thought lost. Wynne remembered long-ago times in the Tower, when Rylock and Ser Guy would stand watch together: Rylock soaking up the stream of chatter like a flower feeling the touch of the sun for the first time.

"Master Varathorn has been so kind. The glider is not the only thing he made for me."

"Ah - I know you needed a new sword."

Rilian looked blank a moment. "Oh," she said, looking a little uncomfortable, "I asked him for something else. Something more important."

"What could be more important than a good blade on the way to Ostagar?" Loghain asked dryly.

"Mind your own business," the Warden snapped, looking rather flustered, ducking her head to hide a blush.

The camp was a dun, green and yellow patchwork in the greasy golden sunlight. Cookfires budded and bloomed: glittering copper blisters that pulsed like living things. What looked like the entire Clan gathered to wish them farewell. A squall of small children blew around them, chasing each other around tents and lean-tos, shrieking and laughing. Cale Mahariel was oiling his bow, all stern purpose, while Cammen tried unsuccessfully to catch his attention. Sarel was eyeing the party and shaking his head, as if to warn that nothing good awaited them. Merrill stood with hands outstretched, emotions swaying her like a strong breeze; Keeper Marethari like a force growing from the earth, feet in their worn coverings rooted in the soil and hair blowing like white clouds as she raised her face to the sky. Wynne was unable to keep from scanning the crowd for the ghost of another face - one she knew she would never see again...

"Warden," said the Keeper, "I leave you this. A book of our lore." Pinpoints of light danced within the ageless darkness of her eyes, encircled by a ring of shadow. She gave the gift into Rilian's hands: bound in green leather, etched with silver filigree that depicted a stylised tree.

Rilian's eyes were suspiciously bright; her voice, when she spoke, was low and rough: "Keeper - I can't. I will have no children to pass it on to."

"The sons of dreams outlive the sons of seed: and you should know this - you who will follow Vhena's path."

Amber eyes swam with tears that pride refused to shed. "I believe you. And...Shianni's children will be born here. I can pass it on to them."

The Keeper's unfathomable stare passed from Merrill to Rilian. Something in her mist-shrouded gaze drew her in, as Merrill's mirror had done...Wynne had the sense of falling sand, of time: rushing...rushing to meet them. For a moment, it seemed that in Marethari's old, old eyes the mists would part and send the future dancing in front of them - and Rilian would know...she would know...something she could not bear to know. But, at the last, Marethari released her.

"Thank you, Keeper," Rilian said softly, "I'm honoured you give me this - even though I'm not a child of the Dalish."

Marethari looked from Rilian to Merrill, a great outpouring of love and sorrow flowing from her dark, liquid eyes.

"You are a child of the Dalish, Warden. You are the only child of the Dalish."

* * *

_Musical inspirations were:_

_Sandy Denny: The Quiet Joys Of Brotherhood (quoted by Rilian)_

_Pink Floyd: Time_

* * *

**Thank you to my reviewers: lynn-writer, Enaid Aderyn, Tyanilth, analect, Arsinoe de Blassenville, Shakespira, Josie Lange, icey cold and Judy - whose previous review was the prod I needed to get back in the writing zone :) Next up - Chapter Eighteen: The Valley Of The Shadow.**


	18. Chapter 18: Tombstones Against The Sky

_The force that through the green fuse drives the flower  
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees  
Is my destroyer.  
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose  
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever._

_The force that drives the water through the rocks  
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams  
Turns mine to wax.  
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins  
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks._

_The hand that whirls the water in the pool  
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind  
Hauls my shroud sail.  
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man  
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime._

_The lips of time leech to the fountain head;  
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood  
Shall calm her sores.  
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind  
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars._

_And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb  
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm._

Dylan Thomas

Huge firs bordered the narrow trail leading south to the Korcari Wilds. Fissured bark and dense needles absorbed light and sound, shrouding the small party in dim silence. Loghain preached that the greatest hazard in such terrain was deceptive openness. Vision extended for surprisingly long distances. A first impression was of a park. In fact, the bulking trunks and shading light were a treacherous combination. Wynne had seen Loghain's entire twenty-man group of Night Elves trot off and rapidly melt out of sight.

An erratic breeze swirled Wynne's hair about her head like dandelion seeds. Exasperated, she raised her cowl. The Warden wore her hood and black mask, looking - as usual - like a figure in a play. Even when trying to keep stealthy and quiet, Rilian had never mastered the art of thinking herself invisible. As favourite child, performer, and commander, such was anathema to her. Wynne had heard Zevran admonish her many times for being, as he put it, "as stealthy as a peacock".

Suddenly, ahead of Loghain's point position, Ravenous popped out of the forest onto the horse-wide trail. The mabari looked to Rilian, then to Loghain, then back. The Warden spurred her horse, Racer, forward to join Loghain and Rylock. The trio drifted off the trail. Whispering, Loghain said: "My men would have warned of trouble. For whatever reason, they've chosen to let this one pass." He sniffed the air, reminding Wynne of an old wolf. "Leather harness...iron...horse. Grease and wax. A wagon."

Soon enough, even Wynne became aware of the squeak and grind of wagon wheels. Rilian stared - then a wide grin spread across her face, from ear to ear. "Bodahn!"

The Dwarven trader was looking thinner and more harried than when Wynne had last seen him - just before the Warden's army marched to Denerim.

"I've been two days catching up to you," the old dwarf huffed and puffed, as the wagon - driven by his son, the boy with the face of an angel and hands of a Formari - drew nearer. "Was heading to Redcliffe to do business. Ran into a bunch of darkspawn. More than a brood and less than a horde. Out of sorts. Unfriendly. Didn't fancy our chances, so I turned back north after you. Your scouts knew I was there. Brushing tracks. Doubling. Walking hard ground. Not the way to treat a man who wants to help. Could hurt his feelings, make him feel unwelcome."

"Help how?"

"Reach Ostagar. Where you're going, isn't it? Every man should help a Warden. You'll be needing supplies..."

Bodahn's well-oiled smile was sharp as ever. Sighing inwardly, Wynne prepared to part with most of their sovereigns.

Words flew out of the merchant like sparks from kindling. Loghain controlled himself. "You said darkspawn. I need numbers and position. Tell me." His grating tone suggested he was in no mood to bargain. Bodahn swung down from his saddle. Such agility from a man of Bodahn's years startled Wynne, until she remembered that this dwarf had built his entire career on being misjudged.

Bodahn's smile turned ingratiating. "Merchant's life's a hard one, ser. Always poor. Hand to mouth, as they say. Hand to mouth." His gaze slid to the Warden. "The folk of Haven ran me off, 'cause what you did made them angry. Some might say you owe me." Loghain's hands clenched. The wheedling note strangled, as though the Teyrn really had grasped him by the throat. "Ahem. Anyhow, the darkspawn. They're planning an ambush. I can mark the point on your map." He sat down on the nearest rock, hands clasped on a kneecap, preparing to barter. "That horse of yours. Quality. I'd settle for her. If you want to throw in the load."

"What?" Loghain's outrage was a bellow. "For a piece of information?" He grunted. "You told me they're close. South. I'll find them myself."

Bodahn let go of his knee, jerked upright. "That's hard. Oh, that's very hard. Man tries to be neighbourly. Makes a little conversation. Gets taken advantage of. Hard."

Loghain smiled. "Your own fault. You got greedy."

Slowly, dejected, Bodahn moved to his horse. He paused to whisper in the Warden's ear: "If there's anything I can do for you, you have but to ask! I'm sure you'll be pleased with the goods my boy and I have collected. _And with your discount_..."

Wynne knew - as did Rilian - that Bodahn was the most expensive of all the merchants they had dealings with. But, as a man who trod the length and breadth of Thedas, scavenging in the wake of war and strife, he possessed goods they could not find anywhere else. Rilian's eyes lit up. A magpie by nature - as most City Elves were - she and the dwarf were kindred spirits.

She settled on a fine pair of boots of the same purple-black leather as her Shadow of the Empire armour - a soft, supple material that seemed to absorb light. Intricate runes matched those about the waist and shoulders too closely to be co-incidence.

"A bard's dancing shoes!" Rilian cried in delight, referring to the enchantments that allowed the wearer to leap and dodge with greater ease. The phrase brought a dark scowl to the seamed lines of Loghain's forehead. By the time Rilian had purchased a new sword - a plain iron blade that looked like a plank of wood compared to the light, curved green blade of Elven design she had been given at Redcliffe - extra travel bread and tack, Pir Surana had already materialised from the brush to warn of the darkspawn ambush. With speed a bard might envy, Bodahn melted backward till he was abreast of his wagon. He bid them a hasty farewell, and he and his son rode off along the trail they had just cleared, no doubt hoping to trade with the elusive Dalish.

Loghain's grin was feral: a grizzled, dark-shrouded old wolf anticipating the hunt. Gnarled fingers darted along the outlined ridges and valleys of his map. Pir Surana sketched the ambush site, the camouflage paint that swirled his knife-sharp face spangled with pearls of sweat.

"They have an emissary and two guards up on the High Road - here. Some twenty genlock archers are on the hill opposite. The main mass are in the valley below. Something - ogre, probably - has blocked off the main passage with rubble. We're riding into a trap."

Loghain said: "Bows and magic can give us surprise. We can come on from the rear - spring the trap - tear them apart before they even know we're there. All we have to worry about are the ridges. Crossing them will skyline us, if we're not careful."

The Night Elf pointed. "There and there. Trees and brush. We go that way. It brings us in on the rear flank, not directly behind. We shouldn't be directly behind anyway - when they retreat, we don't want them running over us."

"Good. Warden, you ride with me and ten of Surana's men. Use that mechanical toy to cover us. Surana, we concentrate on the main body. When they rush us, I cover the retreat - my horse is the fastest."

Rilian shrugged and grinned. Ravenous tensed as she ran her hand along his square slab of a head. Muscles bunched and slid under a coat ruddied by twilight. Rilian's eyes were circles of excitement; she blinked continually. "So be it. Saddle up, then, sucker. Keep your dumb butt down."

Loghain scowled. "And you keep that scrawny, plumed little Elven arse of yours out of trouble." He turned to Wynne and Rylock. "Rylock - you're in command of the other half of the pincer. I want you, Wynne and the rest of Surana's men to get up on the High Road, here, using the rubble as cover. Bows, Templar powers and magic should be enough to bring down that emissary."

"Magic is not necessary," Rylock said stiffly. Wynne bristled. Loghain remained unimpressed. "Knight Commander - you may see magic as an unreliable tool - but only a fool turns down a weapon because he has seen it used against him."

A stiff-necked nod conceded the point. Under her breath, but loud enough for Wynne to hear, she muttered, "_Ours not to question why_..."

Sourly, Wynne pointed out: "You're not the only one being asked to go into battle with a cannon behind as well as in front. One Dispel Magic from you will strip me of protection as well as the emissary."

Rylock blinked in startlement. Her stoic dark eyes conceded the point. She nodded briefly. "You are right - we are in the same position. Once you get the opportunity against the emissary, unleash your power, no matter if I am in the path. Templars always die well. Whether death comes from ahead or behind is immaterial. Likewise, I will use my powers if they are needed, regardless of your position."

Bitterly, Wynne said: "You spent your whole life waiting to die for your cause. You'll have to forgive me if I can't muster the same enthusiasm."

Her sarcastic tone was lost on the Templar, who simply answered: "It isn't the dying that's important. Andraste did not volunteer for the flame. It is to live in the light, whatever it demands of us."

Wynne saw the light behind Rylock's eyes - the same lucent passion that illuminated Rilian when she played and sang, living entirely in the moment, in service to something she could not name. No, Rylock did not need to die to meet the Maker: the adored presence was with her, closer than a lover and brighter than Wynne's Spirit of Faith. Her condescending pity for Rylock - for the grim, loveless childhood - the black-and-white morals - the stunted education - was stained by something unpleasantly like envy.

Rilian signalled the mabari forward. Streaking across the scrub, the dog disappeared into the first copse. The Warden, Loghain and Night Elves followed. Rylock led their group the other way, towards the rubble that rose unevenly up to the ruined stone highway. Lichen and moss were stains of time across the once-white stone. They tied their horses at the base, then began to climb, Rylock leading.

Wynne saw the emissary first: a creature more twisted than Uldred had been, human-like face eroded by decay into shapes of horror. Its mouth was a wet, twisting dark hole as it growled out a sibilant chant. Wynne felt the horror roll over her. It felt like nothing she had ever known: like long-lost hopes, and dust, and death. A sickly, fetid stink that was iron mixed with disease and the congealed blood in phylactery chambers. All around them, the Night Elves were letting fly with arrows: arrows that simply bounced off the invisible shield around the creature. Rylock took the lead, bunched muscles gathering power, eyes shut in concentration. A roiling azure tide built around the Templar; she struck out with the ability known as Holy Smite. The emissary shrugged it off as though nothing had happened.

_The shield has absorbed it like any other magic. We can't touch him until we dispel the shield... _

The emissary raised its staff in triumph, howling out a series of non-words that reeked of death and hatred, and Wynne saw with despair that she would not be able to dispel the magic in time. Rylock did not hesitate. She ran forward, drawing the monster's attention, ducking and rolling at the last instant as a solid mass budded and bloomed from the staff like a stone rose. The projectile crashed into a crumbling statue of Andraste along the road, inches from where Rylock's head had been. The Templar twisted to her feet, sword leading. The austere face held a withdrawn expression, showing neither fear nor anger. When at rest, Rylock was a lanky, gawky woman - in battle she had the beauty that comes from a thing's absolute fitness for a task. A bird in flight, a ship at sea, Rylock serving the Maker. Wynne could almost see the shadow of light. She engaged the two genlocks guarding their master. The tapestry of steel she wove left a tiny window for her to throw one of Dworkin's grenades.

_What's she doing? She must know it will have no more effect than magic against the shield..._

Sure enough, the shield kept the grenade from blasting him. But it set fire to the anti-magic sphere. Within the glowing nimbus, the emissary readied yet another spell. Rylock's face grew thin and taut, limned in orange by heat shimmer; despite her faith, Wynne sensed the Templar's instinctive shiver at the smell of fire.

Struggling to keep the two genlocks occupied, Rylock called out:

"When it drops the shield, hit them all with magic." Her white face held no expression, though she clearly expected to die. Wynne's lips cracked into a small, taut smile as she mentally reviewed her arsenal. _Not today, Rylock. Neither of us will die today._

Gripping her sword in both hands, Rylock swung upward, striking between the creature's legs. The sphere rippled and shifted, swirling around the blade like a live thing. As she expected, the shield kept the sword from connecting directly with the target - but the fire did its work well enough. The creature danced and howled, hands going to its injury, and Wynne blinked in the sudden darkness that followed the dissipation of the shield. The surge of pain had sufficiently disrupted the emissary's concentration to dispel the protection.

An instant later Wynne's own magic had dropped the emissary - stone dead with the casting of a single spell. Neither Rylock nor the two genlocks were harmed. Rylock's surprise did not break her concentration - it was over in seconds as she parried the first strike, spun about, caught the second creature under the arm as it prepared to strike, then reversed and swung back high, slashing the other across the neck. Then she turned - a look of wonderment on her usually stoic face as she prepared to greet a fellow Templar: for who else could have struck with Holy Smite?

There was only Wynne, still shrouded in the blue glow so like Rylock's own. Shadows fled from them: Wynne saw her own, black and tremulous, rippling between the two spheres of light. She had a moment to think how they must look: two glowing figures in a twilit wilderness.

Explanations would have to wait: mage, Templar and Night Elves took positions along the High Road, firing down into the valley below. On the opposite side, Loghain and Rilian had taken the hill - Warden, Teyrn and Night Elves were doing the same. Arrows took their toll unheeded. The darkspawn in the valley were running up the ridges, towards them, screaming, threatening, dodging from cover to cover. The Warden's face was a pale smear; her expression a caricature of the young woman Wynne knew. Golden eyes ablaze with inhuman passion. Throat muscles ridged like steel cords. Teeth bared in grimace.

"_Get some...get some...get some_!" she was shrieking, as the Dwarven crossbow reaped a fearsome harvest. When a group of darkspawn bunched below the ridge, she dropped a grenade in their midst. They shattered into a screaming mass of jagged bone and wet black ribbons. Rilian threw back her head, screamed her own name, told all of creation of her power. Wynne, too, felt the smooth mahogany of her staff as an erotic caress. Fire, ice and lightning bloomed like lethal flowers at her command. Instinctively, she controlled her visceral response - shut out the whispers of the demons that urged her on. How many times had she warned young apprentices of the seductive danger of wielding unearned, unchecked power? Seeing that behaviour in Rilian was disturbing.

Loghain shouted: "Warden! Get back!" as the first of the darkspawn crested the hill. Sword slashing, Loghain stood side-by-side with Surana, backed against a fringe of firs. Frenzied darkspawn charged them, screaming. Rilian took up a position to his right, some fifty yards behind. Wynne could not help them - not without injuring her own allies - was forced, along with the Night Elves, to focus her fire on the darkspawn below. From the corner of her eye she saw Loghain being forced backward. Ravenous charged and retreated, savaging attackers. An incredibly tall Hurlock suddenly appeared, rushing at Loghain. The other darkspawn parted like a wave, hearing their champion's roaring war cry. Rilian nocked and sighted. Fired.

The helm exploded off the Hurlock's head, flying high into the air. It spun lazily, like an obscene toy. The darkspawn sprawled on its back. Its pitted and corroded sword, the point stabbed into the earth, swayed back and forth as gently as a reed.

And it was over. A few crossbow bolts at shadowy, fleeing darkspawn. Loghain moving like heavy darkness through the mass of squirming, moaning wounded, cutting throats with the same callous precision he had used on chevaliers after River Dane. Wynne's lightheaded fog of disbelief slowly escalated to nausea at the full realisation of the carnage. But not one of their number had more than bruises.

Grimy, blood-spattered, granite-hard face a mass of planes and angles, Loghain joined them. "They're fleeing. Towards the Wilds. Give them no rest, no chance to regroup. Kill them all."

Saluting, Pir Surana relayed the message. In moments, Loghain and his men were off with a speed and stealth the Warden, mage and Templar could not match. Years of hunting Orlesians like animals had made them a tight unit. Wynne knew the darkspawn would have no chance against the unseen rain of arrows.

Rilian trotted over, Ravenous at her heels. She smiled at both women. The incredible brightness of her widened eyes revealed a fragile edge of control, as though molten lava bubbled beneath a shallow crust.

"Are you alright?" Wynne asked.

Trembling, still on the tender edge of madness, Rilian said, "Nothing. Not a mark. Lucky." The words were breathy. "Ravenous. Small cuts. Look at them. Lying there. Another job done. That's all."

"Done indeed," Rylock said, her own face inscrutable as always, "So tell me, mage: from whom did you learn the Templar powers?"

Wynne felt a small smile ease onto her face: sharp as a knife and not entirely pleasant. "The question you should be asking is: who taught your Order to use mage spells? We Thaumaturgists - those who have mastered the Spirit School - know that spell as Mana Clash. You Templars aren't using Holy powers: you're low-level, artificially-created mages fuelled by lyrium."

White-faced, Rylock broke under her unflinching gaze. She looked away, with the brute incomprehension of a mired animal.

Suddenly, literally a blur, Rilian was in front of Rylock, all eyes and fury. "Cruel and petty," she said accusingly.

Stung, Wynne defended herself. "It is the duty of a Senior Enchanter to speak truth."

"Truth used to wound is no more noble than any other weapon. I expected better of you." Rilian turned to Rylock. "There's something neither of you know about the Warden powers. We ingest a small amount of darkspawn blood. It's what gives us our immunity to taint. It makes us akin to what we're fighting. That doesn't change the honour of what we do, or the purpose."

By now, Rylock had recovered herself. Grasping at what she knew, she said curtly, "So you are telling me that Wardens practise Blood Magic?"

Rilian rolled her eyes. "And as usual my point goes over your head with a foot to spare. As for Blood Magic: you and I have seen enough of real Blood Magic to know the difference. Blood Magic involves a deal with a demon. It allows a mage to shatter bodies and rape minds. Magic that involves blood as a component is not the same thing: else you Templars would all have to turn yourselves in for using phylacteries."

Unable to argue with that, Rylock merely glowered. "You said you had a point?"

"I do. Think about it."

"I will." Rylock turned, moved to saddle her horse with renewed purpose. As an afterthought, she added, "Thank you."

Wynne faced the Warden in disbelief. Voice tight with hurt and outrage, she said, "You didn't seriously just compare mages to darkspawn?"

"Of course not. But Templars and Wardens both take in something of what they fight to give them immunity to it. Rylock is no more a mage than I am a darkspawn. Our powers might not be holy but our purpose is."

Wynne looked into the soft, grave face limned by the hazy evening sun. She and the Warden faced the world across a gulf of differing experience that empathy could not cross. Rilian's worldview was shaped by her friendship with Ser Otto - by the nest of Blood Mages who had preyed on the Alienage till they were rooted out by Ser Otto, Ser Rylock and Ser Tavish. By the sacrifices of Ser Bryant and his men - who had stayed behind to defend Lothering after Loghain had ordered it abandoned as a lost cause. Of course the Alienage lost children to the Circle - but in a community where a mother could expect to lose half her children to starvation, violence or disease such was simply accepted. To the child Rilian, a world where Elven and human children played as equals, ate three square meals a day and read unlimited books, must have seemed like paradise. Perhaps her own dark nest of emotions was no more than self-pity. It was simply that Templars seemed very different as guards than saviours. Not that Greagoir and his men had been cruel - but no laws protected mages. Decency not enforced by law was mere courtesy - an environment that could change according to a Knight-Commander's whim. An apprentice earned her way up the ladder through an unending display of obedience to the Chantry and by becoming the lackey of whichever Enchanter or faction was on the ascendant. Only when they became Senior Enchanters did they gain comparative freedom. Only when the chance for family, flight and freedom had gone beyond recall or desire. Wynne had lost a son. Ines and Sweeney had lost a daughter. Perhaps that was why hearing Rylock spout Chantry doctrine tasted so bitter. Rilian had accused her of using truth as a weapon - but truth was all Wynne had.

But trying to explain all this would be useless. Like all young people, Rilian did not like it when someone she considered a grandmother revealed herself to have a past, a woman's desires, and feet of clay. Never mind that that Wynne knew her own facade of wisdom and experience was paper-thin. It was because Rilian saw her as a grandmother that she trusted her so readily. What puzzled Wynne was Rilian's defence of Jowan, considering her stance on Blood Mages. After Jowan had confessed to summoning the Fade demon, raising the dead and poisoning the Arl, she would have expected Rilian to want to lock him up and throw away the key. But something had happened in that castle that Wynne had not been privy to.

But she must say something to heal the wound between them, ugly and raw. She considered the words carefully; drew a deep breath. Rilian's smile of tentative apology cut off her carefully composed speech.

By the time Loghain had finished the last of the darkspawn the sun was descending across the western horizon in streaks of orange. On Loghain's order, they mounted up and rode onward, heading south-west. Though the horde had come out of the Korcari Wilds, the remaining darkspawn - some thirty thousand - were massed just south of Lake Calenhad, between Redcliffe and Ostagar.

"The Wilds will hide our trail, allowing us to enter the fortress through the western gate, not in the open. The Orlesian tells us the horde has moved on from the fortress, but there may be stragglers."

Wynne considered Loghain's words. "Even so, it'll take more than a day to get through the wetlands. Do we really want to spend the night in the marsh?"

"We can make for Flemeth's hut!" Rilian said brightly.

Loghain's permanent scowl became, if possible, even deeper. Several of the Night Elves made warding signs. Rylock's fingers twitched towards her chest - about to touch the sword of mercy emblazoned across her armour for reassurance - before she stopped herself. She had changed into plain leather armour for the journey, and despised such weakness anyway. At once her expression became even stonier, as if daring anyone to notice.

"Well - she doesn't need it anymore. You'll find the dragon's corpse up on a nearby hill."

Several of the younger Elves shot her looks of awe. Rilian preened. Wynne caught snatches of their conversation: Rilian describing the fearsome battle...Alistair's dazzling swordcraft - her own wild ride upon the dragon's back - the lucky lunge. The fact that it hadn't happened that way at all did not deter her in the least.

Loghain had the look of a man silently wrestling with himself. Wynne had not taken him for the superstitious type - but something was clearly preying on his mind. He shook clear of the thought as a dog shakes off water and decided:

"We'll camp at the hut if the ground is suitable. I'll want a perimeter and double watches at all four compass points."

As they left the rolling foothills of the Southron Hills, the autumn-tinted scrubland gave way to a flat, grim valley. The ground beneath their horses' hooves became increasingly soggy, and the only vegetation in sight were the rushes and cattails that ringed small pools of tea-coloured water. Soon the spongy texture of the peat bog gave way to open wetlands, and the air took on a repressive, swampy tang. There was no sign of animal life, yet an eerie, insect-like chirruping came from everywhere and nowhere. Bare ground alternated with soggy patches of waist-high marsh-grasses, which swayed and beckoned despite an utter lack of wind. Many of the small pools that dotted the ground bubbled and seethed, sending up gushes of sulphur-scented steam.

"Mmm - sulphur," Rilian said thoughtfully. It appeared that even the repressive ugliness of the landscape hadn't dampened her spirits, "Dworkin was asking me about sulphur. His explosives use it - mixed with charcoal and lyrium sand. I'll let him know we've got a ready supply right here..."

Despite the known and rumoured dangers of the Wilds, their ride was uneventful. Loghain and the Night Elves rode alert guard, listening intently to the strange sounds of the marsh. From no discernible source, the Wilds emitted a cacophony of chirps, pops, groans and belches. The noise was unnerving, and took its toll on Rilian's high-strung horse. Wynne was proud to note that Lady Silverhair's stolid gait remained quite steady. To the west, the mist-shrouded sun hung just above the marsh grass, staining the slate-coloured sky with smears of pink. It seemed so low and solid Wynne felt as if they were riding inside a clam-shell. Around them, the waist-high rushes rustled and shimmered like a living carpet.

Loghain eased his horse deeper into the marsh and made a short, sharp gesture indicating that they should follow. Rilian blinked in startlement, echoing Wynne's surprise that the Teyrn should know the way. The ground was less flat here, and a small hill some hundred yards away bore the ruins of an ancient Tevinter keep. The grey stone was covered all over by velvety moss. The dying light, filtered through the rooftop, was translucent green. It poured over the wooden stockade that crouched in its shadow, as though it stood under water. Wynne recognised the ramshackle hut that the Witch of the Wilds had called home. When they reached the hut, she saw with delight that it overlooked a large, surprisingly clear pool. It undulated gently; rippling darks and lights like some constantly moving chessboard. It must be fed by some underground stream, Wynne thought, for there was no breeze. Marshlights glimmered in the distance; wisps of foxfire that beckoned elusively.

"Surana - I want you, Clayden, Darrian and Aris to keep watch from the keep, the ridge, that small hill, and that mound of rocks." Loghain gestured towards four high points that encircled the clearing. Upon the hillside, the hulking body of the dead dragon served as macabre warning to any who might challenge the party. "Warden: you and I are going to scout for darkspawn."

Rilian gave a resigned shrug and spurred her horse to join him. "I suppose you'll hunt for supper sometime soon?" she asked hopefully.

"Your turn to hunt," Loghain growled.

Rilian's mournful glance took in Rylock and Wynne. She cocked her head towards the hillside and asked in a tentative voice: "Have you ever eaten dragon? I hear it tastes a little like chicken."

Thoroughly appalled, Wynne and Rylock traded glances, for once in total agreement. "If we thought you were serious," the two women said, in almost the same voice, "We'd ride away from here and leave you in the marsh."

"I'll hunt!" Rilian said hastily. "Really!"

A moment later, a cocky grin broke over her face and she trotted over to the pool overhang. Then she lit the fuse on one of Dworkin's grenades. Glancing at Loghain, she smothered laughter. "I wish you could see your face! You must be a really dedicated fisherman."

"I am," Loghain said stiffly.

Rilian winked. "You'll forgive me when you taste one." Then she opened her palm and let go.

The force of the explosion carried to them as a heavy push to the stomach. Water geysered several feet in the air to fall back with a hissing splash. Fish bellied up to the surface. Rilian carefully took off her new boots and waded in to intercept them. Shouting to the others, she soon had them scooping up the slippery harvest.

It wasn't until they were all walking ashore that they realised Loghain had been keeping watch. He and Rylock exchanged looks, and Rylock nodded shortly to indicate she understood the lesson. Someone was always to be on guard. Always.

After feeding and watering the horses, Loghain, as the experienced fisherman, volunteered to cook. Two of the Night Elves - Surana's boy, Alim, and Murl, a seasoned hunter with a face so seamed with scars it looked like battered leather - helped him rig a long line of frames, made of branches. Butterflying each fish, they lashed them in place. Driving the wood into the ground exposed the rich, red flesh to the direct heat of the campfire. Within minutes the marsh air was redolent with broiling carp. Loghain spoke softly to Rilian, and the two trotted off to scout.

Rylock surprised Wynne by heating a cauldron atop the fire, creating a bubbling sauce flavoured with herbs from the Templar's backpack. Wynne groaned quietly. Rylock's head snapped up.

"Do not judge us all by Alistair's lack of ability," she retorted, "He was a boy when he began his Templar training - he would not have worked in the Chantry kitchens, as I did, before women were allowed to join." She glared at Wynne, daring her to make fun. Wynne gave her an inscrutable smile. The scented smoke rose in the clearing, concentrated by the canopy of grey stone, overgrown vegetation, and velvety moss. Rylock's dark eyes still held a faint defensiveness - a prickly pride in doing a damn good job, no matter her lack of real interest. Wynne could see the child she had been, earning chastisements with just that stubborn silence, holding on to pride as the only thing she owned - so that she could give it up, by her own volition, to the Maker. Despite her scars, her long fingers were surprisingly deft as she sliced and diced the bundles of herbs with peaceful, detached concentration.

"Mmm - I'd have never suspected you had an interest in...botany," Wynne murmured. Instantly the peaceful air vanished and a frown of annoyance creased the Templar's forehead. Wynne remembered a certain prickly mage who sliced herbs with exactly that sparse, efficient technique, and exactly that scowl at any human interruption.

"There's no harm in learning skills of use on the road. Apostates don't keep to well-trodden paths. And knowledge of herbs is invaluable for treating injuries."

"A pity you choose not to rely on magical healing," Wynne said pointedly - thinking that if the Templars had used it five years ago, during the clear-out of the Blood Mage coven in Denerim, Rylock would not carry those scars - and Ser Otto would not be blind. She knew the stubborn Templar would stand on her dignity - her belief that it would have compromised the success of the mission to have a mage present.

Wynne recalled a conversation Rilian had related - between herself and the Grand Oak of the Brecilian forest. She had asked why so many of the wood spirits had been hostile. The answer had been that it was the violent transition to a cage of wood, flesh or bone that caused them to lash out in anger and confusion. _They are like me_, Rilian had said, with her strange mixture of whimsy and sadness, _In my own world I was a docker. Only when uprooted did I become a slayer of dragons. That spirit I fought might have been completely harmless in its own world. It might even have been an administrator of justice. _In her darker hours, Wynne sometimes wondered what her own Spirit of Faith might become, if she lost control even for a moment.

Ravenous darted from the rushes, following his nose. Two shadows coalesced behind him - the amber firelight revealed them to be Rilian and Loghain. Ravenous circled them: stealthy, owl-eyed, gleaming. Rilian laughed and chased his tail. They pounced and rolled and frisked back and forth - so much a part of the twilight and the haunted marsh that they didn't disturb Wynne's thoughts at all. Ravenous had the air of assurance of mabari - he didn't condescend to his Elf, and he never talked too much.

"Fraternisation with mages is dangerous," Rylock said flatly, "If we start to rely on you - to think of you as allies - we might one day let down the people we protect _from_ you."

"Hmm - it seems to me you were doing some fraternising yourself, the other night," Rilian said brightly. She came up behind Rylock and plopped down next to the cooking pot. Ravenous lolloped next to her. He sniffed the air, raised his head, and whined eagerly.

Rylock gave a violent start, face the colour of tomato juice. She cut accusing eyes to Loghain, then to Wynne. They met her silent look of betrayal with small shakes of their heads. Staring at the ground, Rylock mumbled something unintelligible that sounded like: "We are none of us without sin."

Rilian blinked - amazed her quip had gotten such a reaction. "Rylock! Do you think the Maker will punish you just for _drinking_ with a mage?"

Wynne saw with dismay that Rylock could not meet the Warden's eyes. She had never seen the stoic Templar this uncomfortable. Rylock's plain face was furnished with such stark, functional honesty that any half-truths, any omissions showed up like patches of damp. _I don't tell lies..._It was true - and any minute the Templar was going to blurt out a truth that would embarrass all three of them. Loghain, Wynne saw with a touch of sourness, was looking more amused than embarrassed. Men!

But it was Loghain who swooped in to save the day (Alistair had been wrong: swooping was not - always - bad...). "Humph - according to "The Search For The True Prophet" Andraste could have been a mage herself."

Rylock sat bolt-upright, her embarrassment forgotten in her outrage. "That - is blasphemy! Andraste was _not_ a mage."

Loghain leaned forward, a not-entirely-pleasant grin quirking his lips. The flickering light and shadow gave his face a predatory cast, like a wolf blending perfectly with the night. "Show me the verse in the Chant where she denies using magic. What else could have caused the plagues visited on Tevinter?"

Rilian joined the debate, her young, softly-angular face thoughtful as she interrupted Rylock's furious retort: "Suppose - for the sake of argument - Andraste _were_ a mage. Would that deny her relationship with the Maker? You said to me: _The mage I trust is the mage who kills himself_ - meaning one who will not misuse power even to save his life. Would she not qualify? She had power - and she gave it up because she knew the right way was to change men's hearts, not kill them. If she was a mage she was everything a mage should be."

Rylock glowered into her sauce. "This conversation is _over_." She stirred savagely, taking out her irritation on the innocent pot. It did not occur to her that Loghain's baiting had gotten her off the hook with the Warden's line of questioning. Wynne and Loghain traded a small, secret smile. Rilian shrugged, rose, and darted toward the decrepit hut, where no man dared step close. Murl - sitting across from her and working on his dagger - sucked in a breath. "What are you doing?"

"Morrigan told me her mother kept jars of home-made wine. I thought we'd liven up the evening."

"You're going into the dragon's den?!"

Rilian giggled. "Big tough rebel! Flemeth may have been an evil dragoness but Morrigan is human - well, sort of..." Wynne smiled to herself, thinking of the glittering ochre eyes, the perfected diamond of a face - that of a crystalline predator. "Anyway, even dragons can enjoy home-made wine." She returned a short while later, carrying a dusty, suspicious-looking bottle. She uncorked it and sniffed appreciatively. "Plum wine - as I'm an Elven sinner! This will wash the dinner down...hmm, the marsh water isn't pure enough to drink. Guess I'll have to take it straight." The appalled glances of Rylock and Loghain convinced Wynne to try to the wine too, just to annoy them. She and Rilian swallowed appreciatively. The flavour was surprisingly good - sweet and rich, with a kick at the end not dissimilar to Flemeth's dragon form.

Rilian beamed. "We're going to have some high old dreams tonight, Wynne."

"Of all the mages seduced by Fade demons, I wonder how many were simply too drunk to say `No`?" Rylock muttered.

Wynne pointedly turned away, inferring the remark was beneath her dignity.

Ill humour was forgotten when Loghain served the fish, with Rylock's sauce and the Dalish travel-bread as an accompaniment. The dangers of the marshlands seemed far away: eclipsed by the task that awaited them. In defiance of what lay ahead, humans, City Elf and Night Elves were determined this night should be a celebration. Loghain sat on a log, munching trail bread and fish while feeding Ravenous, who lay curled beside the old warrior. Rilian brought her lute and serenaded them. She played and sang for hours, while expressions of pain and joy, sorrow and passion beyond her years passed across her eyes like clouds blown by the wind.

_...The night is dark; the moon is full_

_Above the blood-red plain_

_And every pace and every breath_

_Brings me nearer home_

_Oh spirits watch me on my way_

_They whisper in the wind_

_And when the dawn lights up the sky_

_I'll see my land again_

_The hot wind blows the scrub and dust_

_Across the barren land_

_The trees stand bare like skeletons_

_and the mountains are torn down_

_The water-holes are dry as bone_

_No birds are singing now_

_And far away the city stands:_

_Tombstones against the sky..._

Loghain smiled abstractedly: by the third song he had abandoned any pretence of oiling his bow and was listening with an oddly peaceful expression on his granite-hard face. Half-way through the evening, Surana, Clayden, Darrian and Aris rejoined the company and Murl, Ortis, Tia and Varel took over the watch.

Alim Surana began to teach Rilian a rebel song - Silent Strikes The Elf. Rilian's pure contralto encompassed about the same range as Alim's soaring counter-tenor, and the two voices blended as well as any duo Wynne had ever heard. The last notes faded away, leaving an invisible bond between the two singers. Their gazes clung for a moment, then slid away, a little self-conscious. Alim took a deep breath, and raised his eyes to his companions. His expression was defiant - quickly becoming bewildered as his fellow Night Elves broke into applause.

"Skill _and_ talent!" Pir Surana whooped, raising his mug to his son in salute. His bald head reflected the firelight like a bone-hard moon, and the play of light and shadows across his face exaggerated his gaunt, scarred features.

"Here," Rilian said, smiling, handing the lute to Alim and ceding the storyteller's place. But Alim blushed and gave it back. "You play, Warden."

Sensing it best not to push him, Rilian took up the lute and played a very different ballad - one Zevran had taught her. Wynne doubted the young woman knew the meaning of even half of it. The song told how the Queen of Antiva visited the Empress Celene. Unimpressed by her wild party, she advised her to seek out the House of Crows for some lessons in debauchery. The Empress did so, and the rest of the song told of the competition between Empress and assassins to outdo each other in merriment. It was, without doubt, the most obscene song in Zevran's considerable repertoire of off-colour tales.

When the laughter and bawdy comments had died away, Rilian continued with a comic retelling of the early adventures of their little band - during the safe times - the getting-to-know-each-other times. Only Wynne had seen the encounters first-hand, and doubted the rest of their companions would have recognised the grim battles from Rilian's swashbuckling retelling. Only once did Rilian's smile slip - when telling how she had found the Qunari blade, Asala. Wynne, too, felt the chilly ache of loss.

When Rilian told the story of Ravenous and Old Barlin Wynne was startled to hear Rylock laugh: a guilty snort, quickly suppressed. Rylock was so ashamed of it she would not even smile for the whole of the rest of the telling. _She thinks the Maker doesn't like to hear her laugh_, Wynne thought, shaking her head. Rylock was so repressed that when her emotions did surface they were pure: bald and spontaneous. A face like glass reflected them like a mirror.

When the last dying notes faded into the purple twilight, Rylock startled Wynne by saying quietly:

"I know that you are right in your explanation of the Templar powers." With that rare courage that insisted on facing any truth, no matter how disturbing, unpleasant, or challenging, she had seen the logic. "No Templar would have taught you - and if these were Holy Powers, you could not have learned. It must be we who learned from you: choosing, like the Wardens, to fight fire with fire." Rylock leaned forward, resting her scarred forearms on her knees, steepling her fingers. Her ascetic face held an odd, closed fierceness; her tough keen eyes were those of a hawk. Wynne had seen that look elsewhere. Before the years stole his mind, Senior Enchanter Sweeney had faced her like that, long fingers steepled, dry logic lit from within by lucent passion for truth. Rhetoric was his weapon: the clear, cold arguments that came from conviction not by rote. When Rylock said: "That doesn't change the fact that we serve the Maker, and protect innocents" in a voice shivering with intensity, the resemblance was unmistakable.

Wynne leaned forward, her instinct to meet the challenge. Like a predator, she pursued. "No - it doesn't," she agreed, "But you have not thought of all the implications. If we mages have the Templar ability to negate magic, we can police ourselves. And given that all abilities come originally from the Maker, did He not intend us to?"

Searching for signs her shot had told, Wynne was not prepared for Rylock's small, dry smile. "A pity, then, that you have proven so poor at it, making it necessary for we Templars to intervene."

Outrage popped Wynne's balloon of satisfaction. "Why - you insufferable..."

Rylock managed to keep a poker face, but her dark eyes held a smug smile to rival Wynne's own. "Think about it. Your words may be true - in an ideal world - if all humans were like Andraste. You ignore the fact that power corrupts. Mages controlled by mage-watchdogs is a recipe for caste - for these wardens to charge higher and higher prices for doing what mundanes cannot. Why _should_ mages care about mundanes - a species to whom they bear no more relation than a tiger to a house cat? We Templars may be "low-level, artificially-created mages fuelled by lyrium" - if nothing else, an excellent cure for my sin of pride -" Wynne smiled, despite herself, at the bone-dry, dead-pan humour "- but our very ordinariness is our strength. We _are_ the people we defend. Anyone can become a Templar; thus humanity will always have recourse to our powers. We will not be able to become tyrants."

"Except that the Chantry holds the knowledge and supplies of lyrium," Wynne interjected cuttingly, "They are as much a tyrant as your mage-watch-dogs would have been."

"Then show me a better alternative. Would nations use magic for good? How would Loghain have used Uldred? How did Orlais use Enchanter Remille? How would you have fared if left among your village? Power corrupts: either the mages, or those who would use them."

"Remember what we saw among the Dalish? Mages and non-mages linked by ties of blood and friendship? Magic used to benefit the Clan."

"I will believe that the day I see a Clan led by a non-mage Keeper. Even among communities, power rises to the top. Last night, the Warden told me of Zathrien's Curse..."

Wynne shook her head, wishing Rilian would learn to hold her tongue. Rylock really did not need any more ammunition. She had not inherited her parents' magic but she had her father's wit. Wynne wondered what her response would be if she knew to whom she owed that particular weapon. She had been going to cite Marethari but the words slid away, strangely elusive. What would Marethari do, if forced to choose between her Clan and the apprentice she loved?

Once more, Wynne felt the dry crackling of her magic, as she gave every last drop - smelled the acrid stench of the abominations - felt the blinding pain as her head hit the stone. Darkness - defeat - desperation...not for herself but for her children. Wynne knew her choice was wrong - against everything she taught - but faced with the deaths of her children that did not matter. How could mages resist demons when the weapon they used was love? For a moment, she felt real anger towards Rylock. Rylock and her ilk could imitate a mage's powers without paying the price. _They_ didn't have to fear the night - the demons watching and waiting in dreams. _They_ didn't have to hold themselves to impossible standards to resist. _I wonder - if darkspawn could think for themselves - would they be jealous of _Wardens_?_

Her dark train of thought was broken by Rilian - sitting herself comfortably between them. Without the slightest embarrassment, she confessed to having eavesdropped.

"It seems to me," she said brightly, "That with the spread of technology - and communication - and economy - the gap between mages and non-mages will close. The less mundanes need to fear mages, the more chance of us living side-by-side."

"Regardless of other forms of power," Rylock said dryly, "The man who can boil blood with his mind has the distinct advantage."

_I always thought it was Arl Howe who used his Blood Mages_, _but who was leading whom? How did the Arl know of Jowan's defection from the Tower? I'm almost certain the Mage's Collective are a peaceful organisation, committed to abiding by the Chantry's laws - but how else could such information have been passed? And the Tevinters - for how long have they been operating from the shadows?_

"I've got your protection against Blood Magic," Rilian said brightly, "The _Litany_. Remember when I used it against Uldred in the Tower?"

Wynne's thoughts flew back to the Tower - to that night of blood and storm and perversion. The decaying hulk that had burst from Uldred's withered skin - _mages shedding their larval forms_, he had said - the animal cries of his victims as the demons wore their forms like trophies - the shimmering blue energy of the portal to the Fade; the two worlds co-existing, impossibly, side-by-side. After Rylock had saved Rilian from enslavement by a demon wearing Nelaros' face the young Warden had stepped into the Harrowing Chamber carrying a scroll taken from Niall's dead hand - and a fiddle that glowed insubstantially. An echo of her dream-wedding given life by Rilian's belief and the magical energies in the Tower.

The ancient Litany of Adralla had been hidden among labyrinthine shelves and the dust of ages - part of a lost tradition of magic written in musical notation. Wynne had realised that anyone could cast the spell - anyone who could sing the notes. Rilian had given the scroll to Leliana - the only one of them who could read the Tevinter language - but when the bard had been struck by Uldred's Ice Storm Rilian had had to take over. Wynne had been braced for failure - Rilian could only sing in the common tongue - but she had sang and played on the ghostly fiddle, swaying like a snake-charmer and watched by myriad pairs of mad unblinking eyes - proving that the magic was in the melody, not the words.

"After seeing you in the Tower, I cannot deny the Litany works for non-mages, without the use of Templar powers," Rylock admitted, more thoughtful than chagrined. "A powerful anti-magical ability, written in musical notation. This is what you were trying to tell me after we fought the Sloth Demon."

"Actually, no," Rilian confessed, "I had no idea it could be cast by a non-mage. I'd wondered why a spell like that was hidden away - why Irving hadn't tried to use it." Her feathery red brows furrowed. "Come to think of it, I can see why. Irving's voice reminds me of my cat One-Eyed-Sal on an alley fence."

Wynne stifled laughter - though one little snort broke through.

"But I'm getting off-track," Rilian continued, giving herself a little shake, "Shianni always tells me not to let my mind wander, as it's too small to go off by itself..."

"You were saying?" Rylock prompted with the trace of a smile.

"Indeed I was. The point is: I'm neither a mage nor a Templar, yet I was able to resist Blood Magic through music. I believe this has always been part of the lost Elven lore - I shared memories with an Arcane Warrior spirit who showed me visions of Elven Bladesingers from the time of Arlathan. If this Tevinter mage gained her knowledge from the Elves and passed it down as a defence against her countrymen, think what this means! Templars, mages and ordinary folk using the Litany could work together against Blood Magic. And there are other ways - did you know that Alistair can use the Templar powers without lyrium? You should train all folk in the use of the Templar powers. If everyone could resist magic there'd be no more need to fear mages. Maybe the best Templars are those who render themselves unnecessary. Do you see what I'm saying?"

"I think so," Rylock said unexpectedly, "I _want_ to." Wynne was surprised - until she remembered what Rylock had suffered at the hands of that long-ago maleficar. Rylock cared nothing for mages - but she did care about the victims of Blood Magic, more than she cared for the glory of the Templars.

Loghain was pursuing a different train of thought. "So, Warden," he drawled, voice deceptively mild, "You counsel the giving up of Templar secrets. Will you do the same for your own Order?"

There was a hint of almost every emotion on Rilian's face - idealism and anger and regret. Very quietly, she said: "Do you think I don't know why you're here? How you planned to use Jowan and the Joining mixture? You didn't have to do that. It's true I had meant to use my Joining for my own purposes - to demand justice for my people. As one of only three Wardens in Ferelden, I could have named my price. I was wrong. The battle - all those dead...Sten...Ser Perth - I saw how small I had been. I _will_ share the Wardens' knowledge - that way even if we three die Ferelden will be able to create more. Wardens not bound to me - nor Weisshaupt nor Montsimmard - and nor to you, Loghain. No-one will be able to hold anyone else to ransom - and no one organisation will be able to twist the Wardens' purpose."

"It also means any idiot can misuse it," Rylock cautioned.

"Yes," Rilian agreed, "I know. It reminds me of a story my father told me - about a girl who opened a forbidden box. It contained the knowledge of the gods. I think Marethari would have liked that story." Rilian laughed quietly. "Father meant to remind me of another Alienage saying - that curiosity killed the cat. But I always saw the girl as a hero. Knowledge shared can be misused - but it is better than the alternative. The gifts to mortals outweigh the cost."

_So - a balance of power. What would the First Warden do?_ Wynne wanted to warn Rilian that her plan was a trap that would never lose its danger.

Rilian, Loghain and Rylock were still debating the argument. Wynne found her thoughts drifting...whispering to her like the butterfly voice of Faith...Andraste had chosen to die because sacrifice held greater power than magic. Wynne remembered wondering whether all the years of her life - all the days and nights of study and sleep - would add up to something in the end. Did she have whatever believed in sacrifice - and paid the cost? It was a question as seductive as it was frightening.

* * *

At last the evening drew to a close and the last of Rilian's notes seemed to hang above the marsh-grasses, fading to silence. Elusive lights flickered above the slate-grey water, winking hauntingly. Rilian helped the others pack away the remnants of the night's feast, then decided that instead of joining Wynne and Rylock in their tent she would make use of Flemeth's hut. Enjoying the appalled glances of Rylock, Loghain and the Elves, she sauntered over, pushing open the creaking wooden door. Ravenous followed her. Rilian reached down and stroked the tufts of hair beneath the soft folds of his ears. The bunk bed Morrigan had shared with her mother reminded her of the bed she and Shianni had shared back home.

The hut was loaded with pottery jars, all labelled in an ancient, spidery scrawl. Lovage, elderflower, iris, aniseed, dittany, hellebore, fennel, rue, dill, hemlock, belladonna, rosemary... Underneath the shelves was a long table loaded with less savoury objects. There were books that smelled of rotten parchment, and a row of empty vials with curious glass pipettes. Syringes, Rilian recognised, thinking of Wynne's medical tools. She made a mental note to take them with her. Her eyes fell upon a scrap of parchment whose design mirrored the sere and leafless branches upon Flemeth's true grimoire - the tome she had given to Morrigan. A tree of bone - the deathshadow of the Silver Tree of Elven legend. Rilian lit a fire in the grate. Friendly flames leapt up, and Ravenous curled up in contentment upon a floor of old rushes that smelled like the mabari's breath. Rilian did not mind the aroma of steam and smoke, herbs and parchment, wet rags and goose grease. The flames swayed and danced like golden petals.

She was just about to spread her bedroll across the wooden slats of the upper bunk when a sudden idea shook her. She hesitated - her body was a mass of bruises and the hard bunk looked exquisitely inviting. But the idea would not be denied. With a sigh and a shrug, she took out quill and journal from her backpack and settled to write by the orange glow of a small candle. It glowered and smouldered like a sulky little demon.

She had been thinking of the story of her defeat of the dragon when - a little reluctantly - the memory of her real tactics had broken through the heroic fantasy. She had created what was known back home as an "Alienage cocktail" - a mixture of oil and distilled alcohol in a glass bottle, its mouth wrapped with cloth, used against guards during the summer riots. Cyrion and Shianni had kept her well away from these - but Alarith had shown her. She had lit the cloth, and one deft flick of her wrist had sent the bottle soaring - straight into the dragon's open maw at the exact moment Flemeth was about to unleash her fiery breath. The resulting explosion had nearly killed her - but it had stunned the dragon long enough for Wynne to finish it off with magic. It occurred to Rilian that a bottle filled with spirit poison might have the same effect on an Archdemon. She sketched a quick design: Dworkin's crossbow adapted to shoot hollow glass bullets to shatter on impact...the image wavered, and she was once more standing on a ledge above a boiling river, the Archdemon roaring below, shadows of taint writhing across the colourless dive of its wings. She expanded the drawing to include a means of firing from Valendrian's glider. Better still would be to use Dworkin's blackpowder to collapse the stone atop the creature. As the only Warden nearby, proximity would still ensure she made the Ultimate Sacrifice.

The wingbeat of a strange song pulsed in her head: a dark dirge akin to Urthemiel's Call. She recalled the twisted creature that had sloughed off Uldred's skin like a defiled garment - the still-raw memories of her Fade dream - the moment when the ghostly wedding fiddle had become an extension of her will. There in the Harrowing Chamber she had played the Litany, adding her own words:

_...I woke up and he was screaming_

_I'd left him dreaming_

_I'll roll over and hold him tightly_

_And whisper, "If they want you_

_Oh they're going to have to fight me"_

_Oh fight me..._

The eerie music was so like the dark web of the Song that she wondered: demons and darkspawn - was there a connection? Were demons really the Lost children of Arlathan - and had they tempted the Tevinter Magisters into defiling the Golden City? Even so, how could these few men have spread their taint so far - who had created the first Broodmothers?

Her head drooped, her thought scattered like butterflies on the wind, images and concepts blending together. Marethari's story bled into her own anguished cry: _Why has no-one sought a cure for the Taint_...and Shianni's voice: "_Don't worry, cousin - _I _can't catch the Tevinter plague. I had marshfever as a child"..._

Idly, Rilian continued her sketching by the single candleflame that made a pale oasis of light in the shadows of the hut. She wanted to create an instrument that echoed the wail of the dream-music. She experimented with a longer, slimmer version of her lute, with runes of lightning that would charge the strings with electricity. Then she began to write the chords. Her eyes burned; her cheeks glowed - notes came like troops of obedient genii to the call of her quill...

Ravenous stirred fitfully in sleep, making little mewling barks. Rilian heard the Song - her own personal Calling - was compelled to follow the siren music through the spiral staircase of her mind, downwards and inside into unbearable intensity. It was like falling in love with the open jaws of a shark: the aspiring vacuum of marriage to the naked dark. That instant, eternal plummet and soar into the vast, redemptive, ruinous night the Archdemon had taught her to know and fear and love. She saw her mother's swollen stump - youth and grace torn apart and shamed - and felt a kinship with the debased Dragon of Beauty.

Unbidden, Mother Boann's words of comfort came to her mind: _"Do not remember her like this. Death isn't terrible. There are beautiful things on the other side of the Veil. Adaia will be there, as on the other side of a curtain, never very far away. But life has something for you - I feel it. Go forward to meet it fearlessly, dear."_

It had always seemed to Rilian that she was very, very near that world beyond the Veil. She could never draw it aside, but sometimes - just for a moment - it was as if a wind fluttered it, and she heard an echo of the enchanting realm beyond - a note of unearthly music. This moment came rarely; went swiftly. She could never recall it, never summon it, never imagine it - but its wonder stayed with her for days, making her feel a joy that was like tears and a despair of translating its beauty into any chords she knew. The moment she thought of as "the spark" had first come when she was eight years old, and she had seen a luminous pulsating star touch the highest branch of the Vhenadahl. The inchoate sense of two majesties meeting had brought her wonder moment and stayed with her forever. It had come with a high, wild note of wind in the night - with the glass bubbles in Habren's paperweight that seemed so much like far-off worlds - with a shower of light streaming through the Chantry's stained glass windows - and with the spirit-like sheen of ice upon the Vhenadahl, gilding its branches and creating a tree of silver. When the spark came Rilian felt the world was an instrument on which the Maker played - a sweetness she could never match. There was something beyond music - any music, all music - that always escaped when she tried to grasp it yet left something in her hand she wouldn't have had if she hadn't reached for it.

At last her candle went out with a sputter and hiss in its little pool of melted tallow. A gout of sparks lifted from the hearthfire like stained glass in motion. Rilian saw herself: a single hissing spark...had a sense of light and heat expanding from an infinite point, setting the dark on fire.

Were there sparks of darkness as potent? Could darkness spread, as fire spread, from its sparks?

The sparks coalesced to become the Silver Tree. In the moment between waking and sleeping, the images unrolled before her against the staccato background of a shower of rain: as if the finite were for a second infinity...as if mortality put on immortality - as if all ugliness had vanished, leaving only flawless beauty.

She fell asleep with a sense of completion and victory, borne of the working out of her creative impulse, and dreamed to the lullaby of the rain.

_Song inspirations were:_

_The Litany of Adralla: Laura Marling - Night Terror_

_Journey To Ostagar: The Pogues – Tombstone_

_AN: I'd like to thank Arsinoe for her thought-provoking review of Chapter Fifteen - and subsequent PMs - your comments on the nature of magic being a sliding scale, and the Templars' "Holy Smite" and "Cleanse Area" being identical to the Spirit School's "Mana Clash" and "Anti-Magic Burst" were the inspiration behind the scene in which Wynne and Rylock fight together. _


	19. Chapter 19: The Valley Of The Shadow

_Behind every tree is a cutting machine_

_and a kite fallen from grace_

_Inside every man is a heart of sand_

_I can see it in his face_

The Captain and the Hourglass

Laura Marling

When you have fallen asleep listening to the music of the Golden City, it is something of an anti-climax to wake up to a face-full of ink. Rilian gasped and sputtered - looked around with bleary eyes and frantically tried to clean up the spilled bottle. She had slept with her head on the wooden table and her movement had knocked it over. On her hair - her face - thank the Maker it had missed her notes! Rilian knew she did not have the years left to make of her voice and playing an instrument that would do justice to last night's inspiration - but since the notes were there in black and white they could be sung by others. Leliana's talent far outstripped her own - she would bring the music to life...

Outside the hut, the night's rain sparkled over the pre-dawn camp. Between shimmering marsh-grasses and distant firs, the light was the colour of moss-weathered slate. The ground was muddy and churned with footprints: she saw the shrouded figure of Loghain on watch, and gave him a cheery wave. She trotted over to the pool where she had caught the fish - but it was too shallow and muddy for bathing. Rilian shrugged, remembering there was a deeper pool further out. She headed through ferny fronds to the place of the old Warden outpost - crumbled and stained with decay. The ceiling had collapsed: the pillars were like the skeleton of a building...green light poured through, striking an undulating rhythm like the surface of a lake. She ducked under a series of graceful archways - pale gleaming stone that curved like the ribs of some vast creature - thinking of the old Alienage superstition about walking under ladders. The courtyard where she had found the cache was a vibrant carpet of moss. Fallen statues were dotted here and there like giant chess pieces: remnants of a game between Man and Time that Man had lost. Only the Queen remained standing - Andraste, pale and unchanging.

Not so the marsh. Rilian trotted across what had once been the path - high ground that curved around a deep expanse of water. The banks of the lake were shrouded by constant movement: waving fronds, shifting shadows, and a whizzing storm of insects - bussing, stinging, wings shimmering in the silver light. For every beauty - the fat, waxy leaves of the plant whose flowers had cured Ravenous - the flight of a bird like a streak of jewelled light - she saw what seemed to be a corresponding ugliness - like the fuzzy grey spiders that clung to the overhanging branches. Even vegetation moved and shifted: the reeds and rushes writhing in the wind, the water plants bobbing with every ripple. The marsh was a tapestry in which every thread seemed to be in motion. The darkspawn had come and gone - the Taint had been absorbed and transmuted by the alchemy of creation. Everything was alive.

Rilian thought of the Brecilian forest, which was also a place of life, of deep roots and quiet power. That ageless green darkness had been old and settled. Like the Elves of Arlathan, it had found its own stately music, its own measured and unchanging pace. She remembered the Tevinter pillars - crumbled, surrounded by the trees that had outlasted them - had waited for the Elves to reclaim them. The Brecilian forest could easily remain just as it was until the end of time. The Korcari Wilds seemed to be reinventing themselves every moment. Rilian imagined returning in twenty years to find it a jungle so thick there would be no passage through it: a clot of green and black whose twining leaves shut out the light of the sun.

She continued to head south and west, following a familiar trail. There was the patch of deathroot Daveth had taught her to pick - there was the pile of rubble that had once been an altar. An altar that had taught her once and for all why curiosity had killed the cat. And there, below the overhang, lay the glittering glass dome that jutted from the steely grey water: the roof of a drowned cathedral. In the murky half-light, its colour was the dark green of a wine bottle. It was so perfectly round that Rilian saw it as a crystalline planet, suspended between a lake and sky of darkness. She thought of Habren's paperweight, and the bubble spheres within. Eagerly, she made her way down a slope of mud and scree, pushing past verdant fronds and stinging leaves, wanting to submerge herself in the water like a satellite to that floating orb. It would be the same experience she had at the docks - bathing in an icy, jet-black sea that flayed her skin like knives, staring up at ghostly ships whose masts were like trees, jutting into the night sky and its numinous stars. Floating in the dark and silence, she had felt both utterly inconsequential and supremely important, as if she were the fulcrum on which sea and stars turned.

She headed down the embankment, towards the mirror-like water's edge, the chill in the air making the fine hairs stand up on her arms. She found someone had beaten her to it: Rylock was already at the water, lean-muscled body encased in the steel tower of her Templar armour.

"You're up early," she called out cheerfully.

"I have morning prayers," was the stiff response.

Rilian sighed, and wiggled her boot heel about in the cold silty mud, making little rivulets of water trickle like snail-trails.

"I wanted to lie in this morning" she said disconsolately, "Six months in the field and five years as a docker have ruined me. I used to love being lazy - my cousin always had to wake me, and even then I'd hide under the covers..."

As though the memory of Shianni had magically called the sound, Rylock sniffed. Rilian stared, eyes wide, and quickly clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggle.

"You'd have made a poor Chantry Child," Rylock said tartly, "Revered Mother Leanna would have switched you until you were glad to get up."

"Switched? All you little girls?"

"Of course. It is the way."

A sudden vivid memory of the Revered Mother of Denerim - Mother Boann's replacement - flashed into Rilian's mind: the attempt to bully Rylock into remaining in Denerim, the silent, dire threat, the ugly mouth and stone-grey, merciless eyes.

"And is that why you rise early - because that horrible old woman whipped you into it as a child?" she blurted, in mounting indignation.

Rylock's face Chantrified - as Rilian thought of it - mouth drawing downward into a thin line of offence.

"I rise early to greet the Maker. Because I believe in why I greet the Maker. My prayers are not a trick to avoid punishment."

"I'm sorry - I didn't mean it like that," Rilian said quickly, "I guess I should pray too - but I haven't felt much like it since…since after the battle. It seems to me," she added bitterly, "That if the Maker were doing all he ought to we wouldn't be here."

Rilian had expected anger from the Knight-Commander over that - but Rylock looked too genuinely astonished to be angry. "And do you expect the Maker to come down personally to save us from the darkspawn?" she asked disbelievingly, "After Mankind's own sin caused him to abandon us? It is we who have a duty to the Maker and not the other way round."

"Ask not what the Maker can do for you but what you can do for the Maker," Rilian paraphrased with a sad little smile. "I think you may be right. But I…can't…feel that way." _Because if the Maker is anything like a parent I don't see how he could abandon us. But I only think that because I have a father who'd do anything for me - what makes my viewpoint more valid than hers?_

"What about the Urn of Sacred Ashes?" she pointed out, "Have I ever told you the story of how I recovered them?"

"Yes," said Rylock, rather shortly. Rilian smirked - could the Knight Commander actually be jealous? To be fair, she had told Rylock the story several times already: the first when persuading her to rally her Templars against the darkspawn and the latest last night, set to music. Ah well - it was a good story, and well worth hearing again:

"The nights were dark in the village of Haven. Alistair, Wynne, Leliana and I came up the mountain trail on a rainy summer night. The sentry on duty wasn't very welcoming. Anyway, we nosed around for a bit and came to an inn. When Alistair and I went to bring our horses to the stable we came upon a ghastly sight…"

Rilian went on to describe their discovery of the decaying body of one of Arl Eamon's knights. She told of breaking into the false Chantry with flair and aplomb, and when she got to the part about slaying Revered Father Eirik, in reality an apostate mage, she noted gleefully that Rylock was definitely jealous - her usually inexpressive dark eyes were faintly wistful. For all her avowed disinterest, the Knight Commander listened with the kind of single-minded absorption Rilian had only encountered in the quiet, dedicated Owain from the Circle Tower. She was a good audience.

"…When we reached the white aerie that was the summit it was a moment of pure silence and peace." Rilian relived that strange piercing moment - the same faint little far-off echo of Elven immortality she heard during music, or seeing the fragments of light swirling from a stained glass window. "If _I_ ever built a place of worship I'd do it on a mountaintop - where we could see the world spread like a carpet of riches and dream of flying… Anyway, we had to answer riddles and battle these twisted reflections of ourselves - rather like the darkspawn are said to be reflections of Man's own heart…and when we solved the puzzle of the stepping stones we had to walk naked through fire as a final test of faith. It did not burn," Rilian finished wonderingly, "It was like the words you said when we sent those poor souls to the Maker: "They shall see fire and go towards Light..."

She trailed off, and found Rylock looking through her with a strange abstractedness, as though what Rilian had said had triggered a wide range of half-formed ideas. Rilian sometimes had visions of her friends - of Shianni - as they would be when they were older; now it worked the other way and she saw the gawky, self-contained, slightly sullen Chantry child, plain face marked by its purity of thought and dark eyes lit from within by tamped-down, semi-crushed yearning: the sombre desire to do right as she understood it.

"I have never felt the Maker in high places nor even in the Chantry," Rylock blurted suddenly - the revelation springing without thought like flowers from rain, "But sometimes, when fighting demons - when meeting the eyes of creatures that would unmake me if I looked too long - feeling nothing beyond the balance of a sword of mercy, I look back afterwards and: there He was. Doing the work I'm fitted for - having it make a difference that it was I and not another - then I know He sees me."

Moved far past words, Rilian could only stare - and nod. Also more comfortable in silence, Rylock turned away, bent knee, and began to recite that day's verse from the Chant in her dry, clipped soldier's voice. Rilian sat more comfortably, knees drawn up to her chest and arms wrapped about her shins - as she had often sat by the Vhenadahl back home - and watched the sun rise over the Wilds, waking birds and plants and animals to life. Like Elves, they could survive anywhere, she thought dreamily, enduring the Blight as roots sleep through winter.

The first slanting rays of sunlight broke through the steel-bellied clouds with blinding exuberance. Fingers of light splayed across the dark grey water with cold golden intensity. Near-horizontal sheets of pure energy limned the verdant fronds and steeply-pitched banks. Striated cloud banks gleamed in sudden splendour, burnished to bright, seething colour.

The splash of light fell upon the dome - and at once the dark-green glass shimmered into translucent luminosity. Pale and sea green, it blazed like a stained glass window to an underwater world. The light itself was thick - almost greasy - falling like green rain upon weirdly vibrant and changing life.

"Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls, from whose emerald waters doth life begin anew," Rilian murmured.

Rylock looked up. "We are on Eruditions 12, not Andraste 14," she corrected.

"No, silly!" Rilian waved her arms as though to take in everything, all at once. "Look." Light played across water in intricate, unceasing changes, as though it were a curl of foam at the boiling edge of creation

Rylock looked up - and Rilian could tell she understood because of the way her taut, gracile body began to relax in slow increments, as though easing back into herself. Rilian, too, felt a weight lift from her being. The scars of recent events: the deaths, the Tevinter plague, Arl Howe's violation, seemed curiously far away. She knew Rylock had suffered a similar experience - knew it because of the twitchy reflexes, the sleepless nights, the odd brittleness about the eyes. They recognised that in each other like veterans of similar campaigns, and enjoyed the peace in silence. When the world was ceaselessly recreating itself on every side, it was impossible not to feel as if they, too, were being cleansed and made new.

* * *

"What are all these bones?" Rilian asked, as the party made their way across the Wilds, heading south-west towards Ostagar's side gate. The ground was flatter here - firmer - and dotted with a jumble of spines and rib-cages like the bleached hulls of ruined ships, strangely white against the mud. "I hope they belong to animals."

"We are all animals," Loghain muttered.

"What are you trying to do, Loghain - frighten her?" Wynne snapped, "It's obvious these weren't human remains."

Loghain only grunted. He had been in a foul mood ever since they left the hut. Rilian guessed this was because he had been by far the greatest target for the local insect life - his dour face was covered in bites - and forgave him his short temper.

"The prey of that abomination on the hill," he growled.

Unlike Wynne, Rilian understood he had cause to fear Flemeth. The Witch had told her of her words to Maric: "Keep him close and he will betray you - each time worse than the last." Rilian had used those words to convince Loghain she really had been saved from Ishal by Flemeth, and not by some Warden plot. She understood why Loghain hated Flemeth - but to her knowledge the prophecy had been wrong. Loghain had not betrayed Maric - the friend who had once asked him never to put the King before the Kingdom. _Why did she tell him that_? Rilian wondered. She understood that words, even by themselves, held power. "Speak no evil," Aunt Elva had once said, "Four tiny demons lurk everywhere just waiting to catch your words and use them to tip their arrows with poison." _Who knows where they go once they're spoken aloud; they drift off like seeds in the wind. Flemeth had a mind gone rotten like a piece of old fruit. Who knows what strange prodigies will hatch from it?_

They passed through an enormous archway, still standing within a pool of water, as if inviting them into the wilderness. Nearby were two carved standing stones - one tall, one short. A father and son, Rilian thought wistfully, glad that she had insisted on burying the two missionaries when she, Alistair, Daveth and Jory had passed this way. All around her were familiar landmarks - memories of the time they had explored this place, searching for darkspawn blood. Daveth and Jory were dead - Alistair would never forgive her.

The Night Elves were following the Chasind trail signs - it brought them to a flatland of sodden marsh grasses and a ledge that had once housed a pack of wolves. Ostagar was very close now - but the dying light brought worried glances from Wynne and Surana. Horrible as the ruins would be in daylight, they would be unspeakable in darkness. The ledge led down to a path so draped with the fronds of leaning ferns that it seemed hung with a solid green curtain. It opened out into a quiet little pool and flat meadow. Rilian thought it a wonderful place to stop - it seemed an airy paradise after the wet and tangled trail - and was about to say so when Wynne beat her to it. They set up camp, with Aris, Surana, Murl and Alim keeping watch and Loghain hunting.

Tonight's meal was plain compared with yesterday's fish - Loghain had brought down a couple of stringy marsh-birds, which they mixed with Merril's cuts of roast boar. Rilian sidled forward and sniffed the peppery mixture. She wrinkled her nose.

"Too much for your refined sensibilities, Warden?"

Rilian turned towards Loghain's dour voice and did her best Habren impression. "I expected caviar at least."

"City Elves!" grinned Surana, moving with his usual lethal grace to stand beside his commander, "It's good for you. The pepper preserves the meat. We won't have to set so many snares." He glanced meaningfully toward the direction of Ostagar - that city of tombstones, mercifully hidden from view.

"The darkspawn." Rilian nodded thoughtfully. "I'd forgotten about them. I feel a terrible craving for pepper."

Loghain barked a laugh. "Taste's a peculiar thing, isn't it?"

The group camped beside an orange fire whose flames shone against a lilac-and-rose sky. This close to the ruins, the conversation was muted - each man or woman absorbed in their own thoughts. Rilian found Rylock, drying her battered leather gloves. Her thin, hard-muscled forearms were a mass of silvery striations: in places puckered, in places satin. The skin across palms that would no longer callus looked fragile as moth wings, studded with raw patches. Rilian remembered something, smiled, and rummaged in her backpack.

"Here," she offered, a little shyly, "A gift from Master Varathorn."

Rylock looked blank - studying the elbow-high protective gloves as though not sure how they related to her. Light as silk and tougher than bullhide, the Dalish leather was treated with the same waterproof wax as the aravel sails. Intricate enchantments also protected the wearer from fire and magic. Rilian - who had had the idea when seeing Shianni use them - knew Rylock could not object to the Dalish enchantments when her own Templar armour was traced with lyrium runes. She smiled. She planned to give Loghain her map of the Anderfels and Wynne a book on the uses of dragon's blood, to remember her by.

"Take them, silly," Rilian said, laughing - but for some reason she made no immediate move to release them. Their gazes met. Only someone who knew Rylock as well as she did could have discerned in that seemingly unmoved face the slightest tinge of shy appreciation.

"Thank you," she said. When she put them on they fit perfectly. She raced to pick up her sword, and the swirl in her dark eyes was that of a child eager to try out a wholly unexpected gift. She walked - had it been anyone else it might have been said that she bounded - over to the patch of flat grassland, to practice sword-forms.

"You should join me, Warden," she offered, "You've had no practice with that new sword."

Rilian grinned and headed over. She made a little bow to acknowledge her audience - most of the Night Elves, Wynne, and Loghain. Loghain snorted.

Her enjoyment was dampened by the discovery that she could hardly keep the sword straight. Rilian was lethal with daggers - and had done alright with the light, curved Dalish blade - but she could no more handle the Ferelden sword than she could a plank of wood. She scowled at Rylock, wondering if the Templar would make some pointed reference to her pretensions of being the Elven Andraste. Rylock had a wit that, however infrequently used, could be murderous. But Rylock's expression remained matter-of-fact. She set about aiming practice strikes, letting Rilian block them, sharpening up her defence.

_...So here I am, surrounded by smirking Night Elves, with a big bad Templar whacking me with a sword of mercy. Like I'm some kind of Blood Mage. _Thunk!_ She hits like a hammer. Like ten hammers. Like a _battering ram_, in fact. _Ouch!_ (Missed again)..._

"Alright, Warden, that's enough."

_...I should bloody well think so..._

"Do you see what your problem is?"

_...Wait, don't tell me - _you_ are..._

"No."

"You were trained by a much heavier man - close to your height, but much stronger. In fact, I'd say you were trained by a dwarf."

_...Well, I'll be damned - how could she know that? Brosca and I always kept it quiet, the Alienage rules being what they were. I didn't even tell Ser Otto..._

"You don't use your weight to your best advantage. And you're holding your weapon too low. Here: try again..."

_Thunk!_

Rylock's blade came down hard on Rilian's. There was a clang of steel on steel.

_...Whew! Just in time..._

Rilian darted to the left, using her superior speed to go for Rylock's side - to that sliver of an opening created by the Templar's forward strike. Rylock's blade glided backward in a move that seemed strange and quick and mysterious. There was a squeal and a scrape as Rilian found herself blocked.

"Good," Rylock acknowledged - a rare moment of praise.

_...There! A breach - but she dodges away. Watch her. Watch her feet..._

"Where's your defence, Warden? Up! Up! Do you think I'm aiming for your kneecaps?"

_...Thunk! Damn - she's always too quick. She surges forward and it's time to retreat. In a sword-to-sword push, there won't be any contest..._

"What are you doing? The right flank, Warden - look at it! No, sorry. Too late now."

_...Edging around the grass circle, looking for a hole in her defence. Feint to the right. She swings!..._

Rylock lunged in with an elegant move that she turned into a looping drive for Rilian's hilt. Her blade glided around Rilian's wrist to hammer her crosspiece. Impact ached through Rilian's fingers - she lost her grip. The instincts honed against Vaughan and Howe told her to dive for the falling weapon before checking she still had her fingers - but even as she moved Rylock's sword licked forward. Rilian felt cold steel at her throat and froze.

Beaten, Rilian straightened up with a rueful grin - and looked at Rylock a little reproachfully as she pointedly checked each of her fingers.

"We Templars have been taught that move since the time of Kordilius Drakon," Rylock said, a trifle defensively, "There was no risk of injury."

Rilian shot her a dubious look - but Rylock was pursuing a different train of thought:

"Have you ever used a Ferelden blade before?" she wanted to know.

"Nope. Somehow I never got round to stealing one."

_Will she or won't she?_

Rylock chose to ignore the comment, face expressionless. "Quite," she said at last, "Then I suspect you will find better results with an Orlesian blade. They are lighter and better-balanced." At this, a low growl came from Loghain's place in the audience, but Rylock ignored him. "All our swords are Orlesian - the best available. I'll find you one when we return to camp. I'll check the weight myself, just to make certain."

Rilian smiled - a pleasure that turned to fury as she heard the first faint notes of "The Warden Slays The Darkspawn General" hummed by Loghain. She glared at him and he responded with a maddening smirk. He looked up - towards the flesh-pink sky - then down again. Back down his long, long nose at the midget Elf who couldn't even handle a decent Ferelden sword.

_...Go boil your head, pus-bag..._

"Just remember to keep your defence high," Rylock continued, giving no sign that Loghain's tune had reached her ears, "It's unlikely that I'll ever try to break your guard below the waist."

"From your height, you'd have to go grovelling around on your knees to do that," Loghain observed, eyeing the scrawny Elf and six-foot Templar.

"Right, that's it!" Rilian growled, "I'll show you how City Elves fight, old man!"

"Will you now?" Loghain asked mildly, "I did not see the rest of your family lurking, about to ambush me."

Loghain had meant the remark teasingly - but it brought echoes of another voice, another day:

_...Because Elves run in packs, like rodents..._

It was true enough that City Eves were a danger to shems only when a drunken human stumbled into the worst parts of the Alienage and was set upon by feral gangs. Rilian had dreamed of something more - of fighting magnificently, nobly, not out of sordid desperation. She vividly remembered the very first symbol of heroism she had seen - and the darkness that soon followed...

_...The Landsmeet chamber glittered like an enormous golden sphere. Rilian teetered dangerously on lethal heels - the first and only time she had ever worn them. Even Elven wedding shoes were flat - dainty slippers beaded with loving care - shoes with heels were a shem invention. Her green satin dress - chosen by Adaia to complement her hair - prickled like a spider's web around her. Her heart pounded in a mixture of confusion and excitement. She did not know what she was doing here - why her mother had taken her along for the first time as she played and sang for the shems. Or why Adaia and Cyrion had argued bitterly._

_Adaia made a discreet gesture toward a golden young man:_

_"That's Cailan - the future King," she whispered, "I would like you to direct your song to him tonight. He loves to hear tales of heroes and dragons." Her mother smiled - but something hidden moved in the depths of her eyes. Adaia had so often seemed to be part of another world - a glamorous, exciting one - but one that left strange scars and black moods. Rilian shared her garden of dreams - but didn't understand the darkness in the corners._

_Rilian wriggled in the tight dress - self-conscious because her mother had insisted on padding in the front - something no Elven woman would be seen dead in. She was relieved that they had left before Shianni and Cyrion returned from work. Her attention was not on Cailan - who seemed rather uninteresting - but on his father, the King - on the pale gleaming blade studded with runes that glowed a fierce azure. She spun castles in the air - dreams in which she wielded that blade, protecting her people against many faceless enemies in a blaze of light - and came back to earth to find her mother gone and the King's son looming over her._

_She blinked in startlement and dropped into a graceless curtsey._

_"Come and see me later," Cailan said, with a dazzling smile._

_Rilian coughed and sputtered. "Oh - I couldn't do that, sire. Father expects me back by midnight."_

_"I'm sure," Cailan said delicately, "He will understand."_

_"Oh no - he really wouldn't. I always do what my father says - and you should too. Why, I'm only fourteen."_

_Cailan actually blushed - and stammered something about having thought she was older. Rilian smiled, to try to put him at ease. "I have trouble guessing sh...human ages too," she reassured him - aware for the first time that the tall hawk-like man behind the prince was stifling a snort of laughter._

_"Come, come, Cailan," the old warrior put a gauntleted hand on the young man's shoulder, drawing him away. "An early night would not go amiss. I expect to see you on the practice field at first light." The hawk-faced man was, unaccountably, enjoying himself - just as Cailan unmistakably wasn't._

_But Adaia was nowhere to be seen - and Rilian did not find her before Cyrion arrived, face tight and drawn, to take her home..._

What followed was something Rilian had never been able to understand. Soris running to father: _"They've arrested her - they say she took something from the King's chambers!"_ - the joyful tapestry of their lives unravelling like wool - its colours faded by rain and trampled into mud by the boots of shem guards. Adaia's imprisonment and terrible punishment. Rilian remembered those days as a series of images: pictures frozen in time, with dark spaces of horror between.

…_Cyrion's eyes were like fractured chips of green glass. His sallow cheeks trembled with some hidden question. A terrible weight sat on his shoulders. "Adaia - why were you there?"_

_There was a note of pleading in Adaia's voice. "What do you want me to say? Yes, I went to the King's chambers. He wanted to see me."_

_"And?"_

_"And…and what? I - I - I…" Then her voice was no longer pleading. A shrill cry came from her throat. "You know me, Cyrion. I play the bard sometimes. I make things beautiful - better than they are. But I never lie unless I can make a lie come true. Cyrion, I can never lie to you!"_

_The house shuddered from the cry. Rilian's parents stood staring through each other's eyes…searching…sharing a truth she didn't understand. And, as her father stared, the thinness of his nostrils quivered._

_The house shuddered. Cyrion looked like he wanted to fall, to hold onto something for support. Instead he bit down so hard the skin rippled over his jaws. Everything in the house followed the same contortions. The air writhed in agony._

_"Father!" Rilian cried. The cruelty of the moment had pierced her deeply. She had to bring things back to normal: for her and for Shianni, standing by her side. "Mother." Adaia looked through her as though she were a stranger. "Marjolaine," she babbled on desperately, "That shem woman who came to the house to collect your papers. She said even now you are the most beautiful woman she has ever seen. Yes, she did. And I felt so proud…"_

_"Proud? Proud indeed!" Rilian recoiled from the venom of her words. "It is a trick! This thing beauty they talk about. Believe me, it is a low trick put out by the Maker." Her face was flushed with anger and fever; her eyes were glittering febrile blisters. "He puts meaning into beauty, then reduces the meaning to nothing. Listen to them, Cyrion. Look at them flowering out into the world. Beauties both. For what? So life can unravel them to suit its purpose. Girls, take your lesson from me. This lesson: of how life twists us so we put value into worthless things. Puts beauty before us to blind us to what beauty really is. I dreamed of using my beauty and my body and my wits to buy luxuries we never dreamed of. I spent my beauty as a shem spends money. Learn my lesson - or by the time you learn that beauty is just a shell to hide behind, He reaches out and destroys even that shell leaving you with nothing. Do you hear? Do you see? Nothing!"_

_She held up her left arm - and then the right. Rilian and Shianni stared at the terrible lopped stump: puffed up angrily, the stitches drawn so tight it seemed they must tear out of the swollen flesh._

_Even her father seemed not so strong now. He had always been like the strength of the Vhenadahl: old, gnarled branches that bent but never broke. Now he was just standing, a helpless part of their pain. Throwing a glance around the room, he said to no-one in particular, "I have to go to work."_

_Shianni and Rilian remained, staring at each other, with the burden burning in their shifting eyes: the memory of the lines that criss-crossed like shifting roots, the map of scars where the right hand had been. More painful because of the contrast with the other hand, with its long, slender fingers that drew chords of glory…so elegant that it had to be etched in both their minds as beauty's standard…_

Rilian did not understand the words - did not understand what had passed between Adaia and the King - or Adaia and the human bard who had come for the papers. But from that day she had dreamed of using Maric's blade to bring justice - in memory of her lovely, laughing mother whose name, for five bitter years, had never crossed her father's lips.

_The sword's a dream_, Rilian thought - in a voice remarkably like Shianni's - _but the lessons of Ser Otto and Brosca are not. Nor my own wits..._

"No, I didn't bring my family," she assured Loghain innocently, "I just thought we could have a tournament. Say: you and Rylock first, and I'll fight the winner."

Loghain nodded thoughtfully - the gleam in his hawk's face overriding his suspicions of Rilian's motives. Rylock, too, held a gleam of repressed eagerness in her dark, keen eyes. Rilian smiled, and settled back contentedly to watch the show, wondering if events would unfold as she had planned.

Rylock was the quicker, her spare, lean body moving with grace and assurance as she tested Loghain's defenses, relying on Orlesian training against this non-mage opponent. But Loghain was the stronger and more ruthless - giving way when he had to, but always pushing on. The eyes that glared from the predator's face were hard, merciless flint, their flawed centres glowing with feral light like ice on fire. Loghain, Rylock, Rilian and Wynne all shared one trait: that indomitable quality of will which would see the body it drove broken apart rather than yield.

Rylock swept her sword of mercy forward with enormous speed followed by another cut and another as Loghain blocked. He just managed to block each stroke as she jabbed and thrust. Then Rylock struck - swift and fluid as pale lightning. Loghain did not block the blow this time - he simply moved to one side, barely at all. The stroke of the sword missed - by the breath of a gnat's wing. Then another jab that Loghain side-stepped, snake-fast though it was.

Then, for the first time, Loghain struck a blow himself. Rylock parried, but only just. Stroke after stroke rained down as Loghain's superior strength pushed her off-balance.

Rylock feinted toward Loghain's body, then chopped swiftly from the side, shortening her backstroke so her movements were harder to read. Minutes later she repeated the move she'd used on Rilian, disarming Loghain. Instead of giving up or going for his blade, Loghain dropped down and kicked out - a scissors chop of his legs that sent Rylock sprawling. The two of them wrestled on the ground, fighting for control of her blade, so close that breath and sweat intermingled. Every finely honed muscle in Rylock's lean body tensed as she tried to throw him off – to no avail. Loghain's heavy muscles and superior ruthlessness were inexorable. In fact, Rilian thought he seemed curiously reluctant to end the spar and rise to his feet. A moment later she shook her head at her own over-active imagination. Loghain got up, sword of mercy pointed at Rylock's throat. Rylock acknowledged defeat with a curt nod. He held out a hand to her and she reluctantly took it, allowing him to pull her to her feet.

Loghain's eyes were more interested than triumphant. "That last blow," he said, "You nearly had me." Tracing a bright scuff on his armour, he said, "Look at that," scarcely believing.

"The opening was there."

"There was no opening. You created one. You may be the very best. If you forget the Orlesian flourishes. If you remember that fighting isn't an art."

Then he turned to Rilian, a wolf's grin quirking the corners of his feral mouth. "If you were hoping she'd tire me out, you've over-played your hand - I still have enough in me to take on an upstart Elf."

Rilian gave a vulpine grin. Let Loghain think he'd won. It was true enough that he still had enough strength to defeat her - if she played fair.

Alienage Elves never did.

She kept her face carefully blank - letting him think he'd called her bluff - and moved into position. She didn't need Loghain to be tired enough to lose to her sword - only tired enough that his reactions were just a little slower than normal. His duel with Rylock had ended exactly as she'd expected.

They faced each other in silence - then moved simultaneously. Loghain's powerful legs pumped him forward - sword leading. Rilian ducked and rolled to the side - then dropped her own sword with a careless clatter, darted behind him, and leapt for his back like a tiger. Arms and legs wrapped about him, she drew a hidden dagger from her bard's dancing shoes and held it to his throat.

Loghain growled - but could hardly complain about bad sportsmanship after his words to Rylock. He shook her off the way a dog shakes off water. Rilian smiled smugly.

"That's all very well, Warden," he growled, "But had you faced me at the Landsmeet you would not have been able to use your Templar to soften me up."

"I know," Rilian grinned wickedly, "But I wouldn't need to. I think you know that Anora and I would have won the first round - you would have been forced to challenge us, and not the other way round."

"So?"

"So I would remind you of Article 17 of Calenhad's Law: the person challenged gets to decide the particulars."

This she had learned from Ser Otto - during the years of teaching that had prepared her to seek justice for her people. His plans had been wasted by her actions with Vaughan - but came to her aid now, just as Brosca's training in gutter fighting had.

Rilian grinned ferally as she saw the knowledge go through Loghain like slow ice. The law was rarely used at Landsmeets for the simple reason that Ferelden nobles tended to fight in the same way, with the same weapons. But Rilian could have demanded the right had she wished.

"I would have chosen daggers," Rilian informed him. And then - for good measure - added insolently: "I'd have split you from arsehole to cakehole."

Wynne joined them then, eager to diffuse the situation. Her pale hair, loose from its bun, was light and fine as dandelion seeds, fluttering in the breeze.

"I've found a lake a short distance away," she informed them. "The water is fresh and clean."

"Clean," Rilian gave a little sigh of pleasure, "An important word. Well - ladies first. Here: _you _can carry my backpack." She dumped it in Loghain's hands.

Loghain's jaw worked exactly like Wynne's problem horse. He let the pack fall with a careless shrug and gestured to his men. "Time to wash." Rilian hissed with indignation. "Where _I_ was brought up it's considered indecent for a woman to bathe with a man not her husband."

"Well," said Loghain smugly, "_I_ was brought up to bathe whenever I felt dirty."

Rylock remained impassive, and if the Templar felt uncomfortable she did not show it.

"We need not look," she said stiffly.

"Don't worry, Warden," Loghain added, sticking the knife in, "I'll keep my gaze to where there's _interesting_ stuff to look at."

A curious look crossed Wynne's face - her expression had turned to vinegar but her lips twitched guiltily. Rilian gave him a haughty glare and stomped off, head held high and back stiff with outrage, towards the pool.

It turned out to be more private than she'd expected. Above the larger lake was a secluded rainwater pool. It was a tiny canyon - a mere wrinkle in the hillside, less than a stone's throw from end to end. The bottom was almost entirely filled with a standing pond choked with hyacinths and water lilies and long trailing grasses.

"Oh Wynne it's beautiful!" Rilian gave a little sigh of pleasure. They could hear the yells and laughter as Loghain and the Elves took over the lake, but the long fringe of marsh grasses shielded them from view. She undressed, enjoying the evening warmth that was one of the few nice things about the marsh, and waded in. Rylock and Wynne followed suit.

The bottom of the pool was covered with soft, firm mud that felt good beneath her toes. The grasses that loomed so closely and dropped so low, greedy for water, made her feel protected and secluded. After wading half-way around the edge of the pool, she found a spot where the grass grew thick beneath the surface. She sat on it as though it were a carpet, sinking down until the water almost reached her chin. Arching back in a spine-cracking stretch of sheer exuberance, she settled onto her elbows until only her head, breasts and kneecaps were exposed. Water swirled and eddied around her in mock rapids. Wynne followed her example, letting the water tug her fine pale hair in a rippling cloak behind her. Rylock remained businesslike, washing hair and body in quick, efficient strokes. Rilian paddled about, pretending to swim. Her waves washed across Wynne's face. The mage burlesqued drowning - then slapped water at Rilian. Rilian, showing no favoritism, doused both Wynne and an indignant Rylock. Splashing and giggling like a child, Rilian gave herself up to the moment, rejecting the world as it was for life as it should be.

In the softness of dusk, the grasses swayed gracefully on the banks of the pool. Far away, Ravenous sang of the day's hunt, lifting his voice in a spine-tingling howl. Swallows and bats wove across a muted sunset.

Rilian splashed water on her face, then wetted her hair and tried to loosen Shianni's braids. With a sad little smile, she recalled how Nelaros coming early to their wedding had sent her into a panic: because her hair had not yet begun to grow out of its docker's cut. How Nelaros had told her she was beautiful and swung her thorough the Elven dances - how for the first time in her life she had felt delicate and light as a feather. Now, six months later, it was growing out - she could not treat it as carelessly as she had of late. Wynne helped her, and after they had washed each other's hair they simply sat for awhile, listening to the racket of birds and the warm wind moving the grasses.

Rylock got out first, and Rilian towelled her dry. The Templar stood unmoving through it all with her usual stoicism. Then Wynne rose from the water. Tiny droplets formed a glittering net over her many complex curves. Lines of age, of life experience, formed a silvery spiderweb. Her skin was pale as Dragonbone and her magic cast it with a nascent luminosity: marble-white as a statue of Andraste.

"Here," Rilian challenged Rylock, thrusting the drying cloth into her hands. "Or do you think her magic might rub off on you?"

Rylock was just standing there, staring at Wynne as though in a trance.

Rilian giggled. "Maker! Anyone would think you were a knight and Wynne a maiden you were too scared to touch!"

With the air of one taking refuge in technicalities, Rylock muttered: ""I _am_ a knight."

"Well, don't do anything I wouldn't do!" Rilian snickered, and gave Rylock a little push forward, vastly pleased with herself.

Rylock shot her one acid glare before towelling Wynne so vigorously the mage laughingly complained she'd rather freeze to death than be pummelled to death.

Then, singing, Rilian led them back to camp. She carried her armour, wearing only her griffin tunic, black leggings and bard's dancing shoes. They hoarded the scent of the soap. She enjoyed the briskness of the wind that nipped at flesh without being able to touch the inner warmth beneath it. She felt snug, immaculately clean, and wonderfully refreshed.

Wynne bustled about in the fading light, harvesting the roots and soft, lance-shaped leaves of a plant she called valerian. Rylock busied herself tending to the tethered horses. She stroked the muscular, arched necks, ran her hands across the smooth, warm sides. Even Wynne's stubborn horse responded to her. Rilian smiled to herself, thinking that animals understood more than people. Ravenous bounded towards her and Rilian dropped down, meeting the liquid dark eyes and playing with the tufts of hair behind the soft folds of his ears. Rilian buried her face in his powerful shoulder, irritated as she found her thoughts drifting to Alistair. At first she told herself she missed him because he was the only other Warden. That lie stung, and she substituted one that said it was natural to worry about such a close friend. When she admitted why she was so afraid for him the familiar pain returned. Her shoulders jerked awkwardly. Her hand, tracing the long sweep of Ravenous' neck, stilled. A soft eye blinked reproach.

Darkness brought worse times. Awake, when her mind sparked with memories of his face, his touch, she could consciously extinguish them. Asleep, dreams came in unending, inescapable parade. Her face warmed; she sighed. There was no point dissembling. After all, she was going to die before seeing him again. What sense was there in denying her love?

Ravenous nodded vigorously. Rilian chuckled at the timing. "You do understand, don't you?"

Together, Wynne and Rylock set up their tent. Rilian joined them when they were done, Ravenous curling up outside. She crawled through the tent-flap, finding herself in a peaceful darkness lit by the soft gleam of an orange candle. As her eyes adjusted, other familiar shapes decoded themselves. It was easy to see which side was which: Wynne's held her staff and more books than she could comfortably stack - Rylock's held her sword, sunshield, and hard prayer mat. Rylock was in the midst of doffing her armour. Rilian made out a familiar pattern across her hard shoulderblades and spine like Dragonbone: the same regular ridges she herself possessed.

"How did you get yours?" she asked with friendly curiosity.

Rylock started - about to tell her to mind her own business. But Rylock did not stand on her dignity in the way that Loghain would - her honesty trumped it.

"The sin of pride," she said succinctly.

Rilian laughed softly. "Hey, that's me as well! Habren used to tell me I was sick with pride - and every evening her strap used to take _most_ of it away…but not quite all."

"Yes, she seems to have succeeded very ill so far," Rylock agreed.

Rilian giggled. "Well - it takes one to know one!"

"Are you by any chance intimating that _I_ am proud, Warden?" Rylock wanted to know - but Rilian could tell she wasn't really annoyed.

She settled down between Rylock and Wynne, wriggling into the covers. Templar and mage both picked up books - and Rilian had the strangest feeling they were reading _at_ each other. Wynne's choice was "The Search For The True Prophet" - Rylock was reading the Chant. When she had finished she closed the book reverently, and Rilian listened as she moved quietly to the prayer mat and knelt down. Both Rylock and Wynne smelled faintly of lyrium: a pale, crisp scent like bottled lightning.

Sleep came quickly for Rilian - but dreams chased her. She woke with a start and a small, anxious cry that had Wynne and Rylock staring at her in concern.

Rilian sat up, arms folded across her raised knees, head resting on her forearms. She said: "Can I ask you both a question? You won't think I'm crazy?"

Wynne laughed. "That depends on the question." When Rilian failed to smile she sobered. "What's bothering you?"

"I have a dream. Often. The same one."

"They say Andraste heard the Maker's voice in dreams," Rylock said suddenly. "This is not supposed to happen now, but the Chantry claims all Templars, and some of us dream." A surprising admission from out of the darkness.

Rilian waited for Wynne to make the inevitable connection between mages and Templars - something Rylock clearly hadn't thought of - but for once Wynne was interested in something other than continuing their argument.

"I agree. We shouldn't be afraid of something just because we don't understand it. Does it frighten you?"

Rilian nodded, face pressed in a confused frown. "I don't know why; it's not that scary. It's a burning hot day, and I'm in the cool shade of a tree, with a horse. The horse is beautiful: a red horse, with delicate ears and bone structure. It's thin: skin and bones. That makes me terribly sad. The tree is of silver, and it speaks to me. It says I should feed its leaves to the horse. I try and try, but the red horse cannot eat them. Then I look back, and all kinds of horses are running to get them: larger, rugged, sturdy. They love them. Then I take a step back - only one step, but it takes me far, far away - and I see the whole tree, how pretty it is. And I speak words. I don't know why. I have to. I say: "The life that you bring will last forever, as Vhenadahl shelters the People in summer". And that's when I wake up - so sad I want to cry, and so frightened I'm shaking."

Wynne reached out and squeezed her hand. "It's a powerful dream. It speaks of the future - and how it may not be what one expects. You told me Mother Boann and Ser Otto educated you to speak for the Alienage. That dream died. But look at you now: about to save all people, not just one race."

Rilian's face twisted in pain. "You know I'm only here because I murdered the man who raped my cousin."

"You saved her," Wynne murmured.

"No. That's what I told myself. But the truth is: Ser Otto was at my wedding and had already gone for help. He and Mother Boann would have come back with enough fighting men to make Vaughan release us. But I wanted revenge - for Shianni - for Nelaros. Then Duncan had no choice but to conscript me. I killed my own chance to speak for my people."

Quietly, Rylock said: "But the path you are on is where you are meant to be. For the Maker gives better gifts in punishment than men in praise."

"You think so?" Rilian asked bitterly, "Even though slaying the Archdemon will kill me? And - oh! - I don't want to die. I'm _afraid_ to die!"

Rylock and Wynne were silent for a long moment, finally understanding this most important of the Wardens' secrets.

"Oh, I've lived in the shadow of death for a long time: every Alienage Elf does. Starvation, violence, disease - and later, what we faced on the road. But that was _risk_ - I might be killed, or not. Now - certain death. I want so much to live - and it isn't any use - I _have_ to die - and leave everything I care for! Oh - I don't doubt that I'll go to the Maker's side," she whispered, "I'm an Andrastean. And I'm sure the Golden City will be very beautiful. Only - it won't be what I've been used to…"

Hesitantly, like an animal coming out of its shell, not used to speaking her own private thoughts, Rylock said: "I think - perhaps - we have very mistaken ideas about the Golden City: what it is and what it holds for us. I believe we will go on living, much as we do here, and be _ourselves_ just the same - only it will be easier to be good and to…follow the Maker. All the hindrances and perplexities will be taken away, and we shall see clearly. Don't be afraid, Warden."

"I can't help it - even if what you believe is true, it won't be just the same - it can't be! I want to go on living here. I haven't had my life. If…if I could live I would marry Alistair and - have children. Oh, they wouldn't - couldn't - be of my body, but that doesn't matter. Ours by love and nurturing. I always wanted children. Oh, it's hard!"

Wynne pressed her hand in an agony of silent sympathy that helped more than broken, imperfect words could have done.

Rilian laughed, a little self-consciously, "There! It's helped just to say it all out. Sometimes, in the dark, the Archdemon just came and stared me in the face until I got so frightened I could have screamed. But nothing is so terrible in the light. I can face it now. With bitter regret, but calmly."

"Wait a moment, Warden," Rylock said quietly, "I do have something to give you after all." She pulled up the sleeve of her tunic - revealed a thin bracelet made of some strange material. It glowed faintly in the dim light with a phosphorescence Rilian had only ever seen in the Deep Roads. Her mother had once owned a similar bracelet - gifted to her by a man who had been there, she had said. "Boann looked after me for a time, after the Blood Mage attack," Rylock said, "This belonged to her. It's made from rock from the Deep Roads, and was a gift from her mentor. How Mother Ailis came by it I do not know. Its inscription says: "the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it". Because the rock absorbs daylight or candlelight - a glow that recedes gradually - it will keep time in the darkness. She gave it to me but - I do not need it now."

"Oh Rylock - I couldn't!"

Did the faint quirk of a smile touch Rylock's lips? "We Templars are not supposed to own material possessions. So - you are keeping me from sin. Here: take it."

In days to come, when Rilian woke from smothering dreams and needed to know what remained of the night's sentence, she would consult the light in her darkness instead of an hourglass.

* * *

Ostagar: a mass grave, a decaying monolith shrouded by webs of taint like cobwebs; a waste of dark and silence - a starlit ruin where already the alien and unimaginable was awakening to its new dominion. The deserted fortress looked eerily different: blanched of the noise and colour and life it had held the last time Loghain saw it. The footsteps of his men - Cailan's purple-and-gold tent - shouts and curses and prayers: all ghosts in the valley of the shadow. The pale turrets and archways were empty as gravestones, backed against darkness so smooth it shone like a pane of black glass. Towering above the glistening dark-veined complex, the Tower of Ishal shone like a dagger under a blood-red moon. The ruddy light drenched its ageless patience in a swirl of dusk-red shadow.

Yet the structure was untouched. The stockade he had ordered built - the trenches and abbatis - all stood as he had left them. The towering front gates reared upward, still untouched, their massed railings looking like a rack of spears made for giants to wield. Death had come from within, not without. Loghain would never know whether Ishal had made the difference: whether they could have held the fortress had the darkspawn not come up from beneath. It didn't matter. Whatever the mistakes of Duncan, the Grand Cleric, Eamon and Cailan, he knew the guilt was his. For his inadequate checking of the tunnels beneath the Tower - his blithe disregard for tales of an Archdemon - his fatal misjudgement of Orlais as being the greater threat. Salted fields would have recovered in time - Blighted ones would not. But Loghain did not have time for the luxury of self-recrimination. He lived in the present: and the untouched status of Ostagar's defences was a tool to be used.

Soft footfalls approached: both two and four-legged. The Warden and mabari - coming to take over his watch.

"There's something we need to decide," she said. She looked very young - yet, at the same time, very old. It was a curious thing he'd seen in other recruits forced to become adults before their time: not through the natural cycle of marriage and birth - a cycle as familiar to farmers as to Elves - but through the dark crucible of war. "Who's going to do it if the darkspawn overrun us? You wouldn't enjoy becoming a ghoul - and they'll make no Broodmothers from me."

Grimly, Loghain asked, "Is that even possible - for female Wardens? Wouldn't immunity to the taint prevent it?"

The young face twisted; the Warden gave a sour smile. "Do you know, I have not the slightest intention of finding out. So - short straws?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I'll do it - for both of us. At least that way we'll know it'll be done right."

The Warden's face was dark-shadowed. He knew that she, too, was remembering the wounded in the tent. The shadow remained, but was joined by a slightly petulant jutting of her lower lip. "I wouldn't have had any problem slotting _you._"

"Your candour is - inspiring, Warden."

Her low, dark chuckle floated out of the darkness. Loghain turned to leave - to snatch what remained of the night's sleep - but something made him hesitate. "Oh - one thing: if it's not too much to ask of a commanding officer, keep your moralising to a minimum."

"_Moralising_? I'd rather have my scars from Ostagar than yours. It's easy to die for your cause - harder to live for it. Bearing the weight of the dead."

Loghain felt his own astonishment crease the seamed lines of his face. He had never expected that much understanding. A moment later his usual scowl reasserted itself.

"The currency of war is life. You pay it and pray the outcome is worthwhile. You have to get close enough to your men to know what you're risking - yet still think of them as tools that might need to be thrown away."

"How do you do both?"

He suspected it was not a general query but a personal one. The Warden must know he was using her too. He thought of their sessions of tactics and strategy, where they would set up the table in Loghain's tent and she would try - and fail - to do better than general Thiebaut Caron had at River Dane. Quills became lines of communication and pine-cones became siege towers…Loghain himself had carved small figures to represent units. He enjoyed teaching her - but he was keeping knowledge of the Wardens' sacrifice from her and would send her to die without hesitation.

"Oh, everyone has a strategy for dealing with it. Most of the generals I've known have turned to drink. Some turn to religion. It's a matter of personal choice I suppose."

"What do you do?"

…_the arms of two women, one lean and hard, one soft and feminine, entwined round his as they lay together on waves of grass and darkness…_

"Ask me again after this is over." Loghain knew a stab of regret that he could not tell her the truth - that in the arms of a woman, the monster becomes a man. Because, for all her wealth of bitter experience, the Warden was still more child than woman. He had meant his promise to her fierce young Dalish cousin that he might take her life but would never take her honour. But he despised the cowardice of such a dodge - well knowing that there would be no "after" - that she would have to die for it to be "over".

A spasm of pain crossed the Warden's face - morphed a second later into annoyance. "We'll talk in the Fade, then," she said irritably, "No - I'm saying my piece while I can."

Loghain waited, seeing her struggling for words. He read her regrets as though they were his own - seeing the one-day Warden she had been, fresh from the Alienage - imagining her picking up every gold coin within the Tower, taking for granted that she would be in time to light the beacon. He could see it because he had been a poacher once - had trained enough young recruits from poor backgrounds to know that her first thought would have been to support her family. _I have far more to regret than you, Warden_, he thought silently. His refusal to take warnings of the darkspawn seriously would have sealed their fate even had she been on time. And all because he had been squirming in the net of Flemeth's prophecy. He had been so afraid she might be right about his betrayal of Maric that he wouldn't hear a word said about the Blight - because if that came true then so might the other. And so he _had _betrayed his friend- had nearly let Maric's kingdom fall to darkspawn. Flemeth had manipulated events to allow her to rescue the two remaining Wardens. And Loghain knew one thing - the purpose of that ancient, knowing, cruel mind - that dragon in human form - was the same as his…the same as all races, all species: to perpetuate her kind. How, he did not know - he only knew he must warn the Warden about Morrigan.

"I just wanted to say I wish…" The Warden stopped, looked beyond the treeline to the battlefield, empty of everything but ghosts. She spread her arms in a curiously helpless gesture - as if finally realizing that there were griefs beyond any imaginable embrace. "Ah, nothing. Wishing just wastes time. Go get some sleep."

* * *

The enormity of Ostagar was appalling. Hulking, stone monoliths in an unending variety of greys, blood-washed by a scarlet moon. It looked like an abandoned mausoleum - or a giant chess set from a game between men and gods, demolished in a fit of pique. A chilling twilight world and a landscape of dust. She quailed at the thought of entering that sere valley - yet was strangely drawn by the moribund splendour. A Warden travelling on death's business, carrying her own death inside her.

This place was the beginning and the end.

She had allowed herself to dream of Elven rights, of alliances and power balances. Chasing such golden butterflies had led her away from her true goal.

That goal was the Archdemon. Gently, she reached down to ruffle Ravenous' coat. _I'll leave you with Loghain. He and Sten were the only ones who understood you. You'll have each other's backs. I'll tell him when we return to camp…_

Ravenous stopped trying to see through the intervening trees: the bare, stark branches. The great head swivelled towards her. He whined. It was a thin, worried sound that grew until it reached a spine-chilling howl. When Rilian dropped to her knees and threw her arm around him he trembled violently, then quieted. His eyes remained fixed on the darkening bulk of the ruins.

Rilian leaned back slowly, braced against a smooth boulder, one arm draped across the mabari's shoulders. The other curled across her knees as she drew herself into a snug, warm ball. Overhead, a breeze poured through skeletal branches, the liquid rush of it soothing.

She stared, unblinking, out into the decaying cityscape, empty of life and light. Gates and turrets and walkways brooded in hulking obsolescence. Glass-hard stars shone down in numinous brilliance, ice-cold in their indifference. They were cut into by the purple-shrouded Tower of Ishal. Like everything else, it seemed covered by a silky spiderweb of taint: inky tendrils that spread like a carpet over squat shadowy monoliths, dark hollows and pools of shadow.

In the foreground was a wild, white cherry tree. Its leafless branches were dead, plucking at the air like bony fingers. _I dreamed of a silver tree in a world with two suns: one green and one red. The days were green and the nights red_… Rilian was suddenly outraged at this obscene parody of her childhood dream: this swollen moon gorged with the blood of the fallen…the pale stone heaped like an abandoned boneyard… the strange sense of mute vigilance, as though the dead Wardens walked the battlefield.

Why did she feel, like some stir in their air, that sense of ghostly enquiry, furtively touching her nerves? Chilled, Rilian cast her own web of inquiry - listening in, as Riordan had put it. She let a little of her taint come forth - a mere trickle, and spread it as a net, imagining a silvery mesh before her. If any darkspawn were nearby, it should colour that mesh black. She drew the secrets of the darkness to her, as a spider reads the world through the tingling of its web.

She felt the Song grow deeper, heavier, until it almost became visible as a dark, dense cloud. Distant…the horde were still where Riordan had thought them to be, south of Lake Calenhad. But a closer presence stalked her. Instead of a mute awareness, this creature floated towards her upon a shimmering strand of taint. Its eyes pinioned her: cold black stars in its desolation of a face.

Weariness settled on Rilian. Not the sort that usually came at the end of the day - but an odd, compelling need to close her eyes. It was as if the comfort that pulled her deep into her warm cloak now tugged even more urgently, drawing her away from this place.

The darkspawn. It was coming after her - not waiting for her to call to it.

The black curtain of her vision fell. Claimed her. The world spun on its axis. When she opened her eyes, she was in another place - in Ostagar itself, walking among the ruins and the night containing them. As from within, she saw the Tower, and the wooden ramparts surrounding it: all in starlight, a ghost-town image. Then she moved - floated - within, feeling the stillness of murdered men in a cold yellow light.

She was floating in space. Objects drifted past her: wooden supply crates…rows and rows of shelves…the detritus of the ground floor of Ishal. She drew her arms in front of her - and they were skeletal as the branches of the tree, eaten away by the leprosies of taint. She would have screamed - but she was already moving into the darkness beneath the earth. Except it wasn't dark. The world through the creature's eyes was cracked and slanted, but everything was sharply defined, seen in shades of red and black. There was a film in front of her eyes, though, as though the world were covered in grease.

Then, somehow, she was in a tunnel. A cramped, moss-slimed space that pressed close about her gaunt, gracile form, evoking shrill whispers of claustrophobic dread. After an indefinite space of moving through this and other tunnels, and sometimes through passages whose angles hurt her eyes, she was in a subterranean chamber. Great slabs of granite a dozen feet across formed the walls and ceiling, and between the slabs stalagmites pierced the earth. Altar-like, a gigantic stone table waited in the centre. Other figures emerged from the darkened burrows that ringed the chamber: tattered creatures only dimly glimpsed. But the body she inhabited could hear them. The chittering noises of the hive-mind slipped through the darkness, hinting at secrets they wished to share. There were eyes, as well, dozens of them, ruby dots of a cold smoldering. Another sound entered the easy constancy of the other noises. The new one was no louder, but it seemed so because it overrode everything else. High-pitched, its notes exactly two octaves apart, it called.

Something different came to life in the blackness, something that hissed and moved with careful stealth. Its progress was marked by occasional grating. Its dull red eyes darted about constantly, seeking. Clicks and hard, gnashing noises marked invisible activity. The hissing resumed. The thing retreated, cautious as before.

A smell lingered behind it, weight on the air rather than a definable substance. It was a thing that touched deeper than senses.

She reached the altar and Rilian saw with wordless horror that there was a man tied upon it. He was lined with a spiderweb of tubes, and their liquids flowed into him through large, shining needles.

The dark-skinned face was sickeningly familiar.

Stone-faced, he waged a grey, gasping struggle. A pulse chugged in his throat. Occasionally he made a sound. It was a weak, kittenish cry. Only the unmistakable agony of it kept it from being ludicrous.

Dark flesh puckered and gripped as the skeletal hands attached a vial to one of the needles. A trickle of blood filled the glass container. When it was lifted from the point of contact, the man's muscles writhed.

He never changed expression.

The blank face lied. His eyes were glitteringly alive.

They boiled with fear.

The creature floated toward a shelf filled with circular glass dishes. With agonized care, the gracile arms deposited the blood into the nearest. It sputtered and decayed in an instant, like a dying candle, and Rilian felt the creature's hope flare and then crumble into dust and ashes. Despair close on the heels of glittering febrile prayer.

…_I hold in my hands bright shards of hope that cut my palms_

_I open them - only to find I have gathered_

_Nothing but empty darkness…_

The voice was a hollow whisper. Inside the dish was a sickly grey mixture - the fungal growth of rotten hopes - and as the creature bent towards it Rilian caught the reflection in the glass. The figure wore a golden headpiece that seemed part of its very skin - holding the mask of flesh in place, cutting into it like a crown of thorns.

_What are you_? Rilian cried in the silence of their shared thoughts.

Rilian was taken back to another place, another time. Vast caverns boiling with lava, the crashing wave of countless voices. Beast sounds roared from the cavern: deep, resonant groans - the Song of a creature powerful enough to challenge mountains and rivers.

The ranked multitudes of red eyes swarmed beneath, trembling in unison, pulsing in tempo at the bidding of the Song. They acquired a mathematical precision, each note vibrating at exactly the same rate, creating an arc of sound across the impenetrable blackness.

But suddenly there was another voice - out of time.. Higher-pitched - notes exactly two octaves apart, it made its own song, created a space of silence. Great gaps yawned in the formation. The sympathetic strum burst apart in fragments. Some expired with crisp tingling notes. Others merely stopped. All movement slowed.

Stopped.

A number of the red eyes had disappeared.

The plaintive octave-spanning Song erupted, a series of multi-syllable notes, rising and falling, filling the cavern's silence with a manic choir of asynchronous high-low, high-low wailing.

The creature turned its back on the Song, leading its followers away from the caverns.

The sibilant thing that called them roared with rage, but the sheer weight of activity seemed to daze it. It reeled across the darkness, blazing eyes spearing in all directions. Soon it was standing in one place, hissing balefully, eyes fixed in insensate rage.

The cavern moved in gentle settling. The rock sighed softly.

Those that left the cavern came to a new smell - a smell of heat. And light.

Blinding light.

Silence.

The Song wavered then vanished like a reflection of light on water. In its place, Rilian heard the crying. Voices, uncountable in number, all weeping. Their misery washed over her, threatened to drown her. Then, the words once more:

…_This was the life I knew. This is what I am…_

Rhythm. Immediately, Rilian knew it was a heart, beating fearfully. She felt its desperation, its race against dissolution: a moth's dust-fragile wings battering stone. It stilled. Then came cold. Something was dead. Yet feared death. In blackness.

The return of the words was a welcome distraction. Rilian wanted to reach for them - until the horror of their message struck at her.

…_This is what I have become. One who knows the inner rooms of death, yet cannot grasp what he is. One who knows the fear of too much knowledge, yet driven to know more. To save my species, I have become what no darkspawn should ever be. To save yours, you must become what no Warden should ever be. The decision comes…_

_The ambush_, Rilian thought, _We are riding into a trap. But we need to take Ostagar to withstand the horde. And we need the Joining mixture_.

She felt her skin tighten, braced mind and body against the ice-chill that clutched her spine. She wanted to flee with her knowledge.

Death walked that place.

_Song inspirations were:_

_The Ruins: Daniel Lanois – Where The Hawkwind Kills_

_AN: A shout-out must go to Tyanilth. Before I read her wonderful Chapter Six of "The Teyrn's Revenge" I had wondered why Loghain fobbed Rilian off when she asked him how he copes with being a General. Now I know. His words: "In the arms of a woman, the monster becomes a man" are hers._

_And to analect, for Richard Rolle's "Fire of Love" - for our shared worldview on what it means to be Elven - and for the awesome pics of Rilian that can be found on DeviantArt. The link is on my profile page._


	20. Chapter 20: Children Of The Dust

_...I could possibly be fading_

_Or have something more to gain_

_I could feel myself growing colder_

_I could feel myself under your fate_

_It was you, breathless and tall_

_I could feel my eyes turning into dust_

_And two strangers turning into dust_

_And my hand shook with the way I fear..._

Mazzy Star: Into Dust

Slate-coloured clouds loomed like solid blocks of intolerable edge and weight.

Late last night, with the red moon turning the encircling trees to blood-etched ebony columns, Rilian had crawled back into bed after being relieved by Wynne. Now, an hour before dawn, she made her way to Wynne's post by the fire. Wynne was alert, and heard her coming at some distance. When Rilian complimented her on it, she held out an exaggerated shaking hand and made a face. They chuckled together, the necessity of keeping quiet forging a strange intimacy. Wynne's usually peaceful face seemed troubled, and when Rilian asked what was wrong she hesitated.

"Foolish thoughts of an old woman," she murmured. "I can't expect you to sympathise. It's trivial compared to what you're facing."

"Don't be silly. What's wrong?"

Wynne poked at the fire and pulled her cloak tighter, gathering herself. "I'm an academic," she said, "I was shut away from the age of nine and didn't see the sky again until I was eighteen. On Templar-supervised trips, you understand. You've succeeded in your life. Failed sometimes. I did neither - not until I was sent to Ostagar." She got to her feet, looked down at Rilian. The firelight deepened the lines around her mouth, hid her eyes in dark sockets. "Yesterday you and Rylock mentioned Mother Boann. What I didn't say is that at Ostagar - tending the wounded - she became the closest friend I ever had. She did a brave thing by ignoring the Grand Cleric's directive and going to help - braver still by remaining behind. I wanted to live up to her but I..." Wynne made a small, sharp gesture, as if to erase the words, "Never mind. But I'm afraid of what we'll find today. Afraid I'll do something stupid or...or cowardly and get one of you hurt."

"We all feel exactly the same."

Wynne shook her head.

"Fake it, then." Wynne frowned, not trusting the remark, and Rilian went on, "Make us believe you're not afraid. Who knows - maybe you'll convince yourself."

"Is that what you do? You don't look scared all the time."

"You mean I only look scared some of the time, right?" Rilian laughed at Wynne's stammering attempt to explain the phrasing, pleased to see her finally surrender to the humour of it and smile. Then she said: "You have magic - and, more importantly, you have brains and compassion. Don't cheat us out of all those gifts by worrying them to death. Trust yourself: you'll be alright."

"Thank you for saying so. You really are a sweet young woman."

Rilian glared mock-ferocity. "I'm the Warden-Commander - the Dragonslayer!"

"You're a velvety, sweet, clawless, adorable little - kitten!"

Rilian giggled. "Hey - I'm moving over to that clearing to polish my blade. Want to come?"

"Would it be alright? Loghain said this was my post."

"Did he nail you to the ground?" Rilian was sharper than she should have been, and smiled sheepish apology.

The night was chilly away from the fire, and they both hunched tighter against the cold. For a while neither spoke. Wynne whispered that the clouds were so close it was like looking at them through the telescope upon the roof of Kinloch Hold. Rilian agreed, enjoying the feeling of shared solitude.

A little later she heard a sound from Wynne, as of something catching in her throat. Suspicious, she bent forward to look into her friend's face. There were wet streaks down the powder-fine cheeks.

"Hey - I thought we had things straightened out?" Then she realised how distraught Wynne was. She decided it wasn't a good time to try being funny.

Suddenly, Wynne blurted, "Ostagar, Rilian! How could Loghain abandon us? Thousands of people - soldiers, servants, mages and clerics! The King..."

"Shhhh," Rilian grabbed her arm and glanced towards Loghain's tent. Wynne settled back, breathing heavily.

"Imagine the darkspawn...the taint... the burning, the torture...the rapes. The Broodmothers. Does he even care?" Her breath was quick, biting lunges.

"Easy, easy. Don't do this to yourself. Of course he cares. You heard him in the tent: they were his men. Don't make this harder than it already is."

Wynne shot her a hard, searching look. Then she managed a smile. It was a weak grimace - but it was there.

It stunned Rilian to realise that she hadn't quite accepted what they would find. All the while she'd told herself she was being forthright about the hammer-blow truths of their situation.

She'd cheated. In her mind had been a hoarded fantasy of somehow rescuing both land and survivors from the ruins. Wynne's forlorn analysis made her face the truth.

She considered telling her of last night's vision. The words stuck to the roof of her mouth. Instead she sympathised in a general manner until Loghain called them to begin the day.

She cornered him. "Listen," she said, tapping the surprised Teyrn's chest, "We've got to get out of here. Ostagar's a loss. What we need to do is contact the Orlesian Wardens: fight side by side. They'll have enough Joining mixture for a whole army. We can break the horde from The Rock at Gherlen's Pass."

Loghain's glower told her exactly what he thought of that idea. "We will break them here - put Ostagar back together."

"What with - string?"

"If I have to."

"Look down into that valley of death. It's _tainted_. Half of Ferelden's already fallen. Who cares about artificial political boundaries?"

Loghain's answer came with the dark, biting sarcasm she'd grown familiar with. "Look - Wynne wants to improve the minds of the other half. Rylock wants to teach them they've got souls so she can save them. You want to teach the Alienage that they're equal to the Maker Himself, and all they have to do is form a good union to prove it. Me, I want to restore those political boundaries so you can all have your rightful place to do your wonderful things. Do what you want: _I'll _defend the nation."

Rilian blushed, a little ashamed. Last night's vision of a talking, thinking darkspawn seemed irrational in daylight - a product of her own overwrought imagination - or perhaps some new reverberation of the death at work in her. She nodded slowly.

They spent the next hour preparing to enter the ruins. Loghain held school on weapons and tactics, then directed an inspection. Everyone must have a ranged and melee weapon, properly adjusted armour, and ammunition. Packs were checked: they examined their own gear, and each other's. Then Loghain talked them through tactical and march formations, fire commands, and trail discipline.

It went quickly, frenetically. Time seemed to leap across itself. Breakfast was a nervous meal, bolted down. Conversation came in snatches - almost entirely devoted to reviewing situations of defence, attack, or retreat. There was a last rush of making ready.

"Alright: move out."

Rilian's eyes flew open at Loghain's barked order. For a moment, she couldn't make herself believe the time had slipped up on her. The brief, staccato conversations reminded her of the Alienage after Vaughan's appearance: conversation forced, too casual, and - just before they left - too confident.

Fear coated them like sweat.

* * *

They entered through the western gate, emerging through a narrow gully into what had been the King's Camp. Horses were tethered by the fringe of firs. Loghain had Rilian take point, relying on her ability to sense darkspawn, while he and Surana guarded the flanks. Rilian's first sight of the camp was almost an anti-climax. The muddy ground was carpeted with fallen leaves, entwined with furry tendrils that might have been rot, might have been taint. But the web of her senses remained clear. The vision: if it had been real, could it have been a memory? The creature's memory of what had happened when they took the Tower six months ago? She sensed no darkspawn now.

Mouldy tents fluttered like dead moths: foul rags that hoarded the stench of decay. Rilian was going to head straight for the Tower - but Loghain put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. He gestured toward the tent that had been Cailan's.

Nervous irritability fairly crackled around Wynne. "You expect anything to remain there?"

"The darkspawn would not have been able to touch the King's blade," Loghain pointed out, "A valuable weapon."

"Much good it did him!"

Rilian moved to stand between them but Loghain ignored her.

"Let me know when you're done glaring at me, madam. My memories of this place are no fonder than your own."

"No? I remember good friends dying in this place. And a man whom I respected as my King."

"All I remember is a fool's death and a hard choice. I'd make the same again."

"Even knowing all that you know now?" Wynne fairly exploded.

"Even so. Come: our bitterness is better spent on the darkspawn than each other."

"Yes indeed. Maker forbid I waste a whole day's bitterness on you!"

The sword did not lie within the sad, mouldering remains of Cailan's tent. Drapes and cushions and fine tunics: the luxuries were faded ghosts now, shrivelled as an aged bride waiting for a wedding that would never come. And Cailan's armour was already buried: after spending six months being worn by the Hurlock General, that had been the only decent disposition. Even Rilian - a gleeful hoarder of stolen armour - had balked at the idea of trying to restore its former glory. The once-gleaming gold had been pitted and corroded, as though the poison in the darkspawn's body had slowly leeched outward.

What did lie within was an iron chest, its lock intricate enough to confound even a darkspawn emissary. Rilian set her jaw - tried to remember the lessons of Leliana and her mother - and drew a set of lockpicks from her pack.

"Is this really necessary?" murmured Wynne, mouth set in disapproval.

Rilian expected Loghain to chastise her - but his long lupine face and ice-blue eyes held an odd, eager light. Wordlessly encouraged, she set to work.

She was grateful Zevran was not there to witness her first embarrassing fumbles. Finally, the lock clicked open - and Rilian reached inside...

"Letters! Three of them..."

With the speed of a striking snake, Loghain deftly plucked them from her hand.

"Hey!"

Loghain broke the seals without ceremony - scanned through the first...the second...the third. The look on his face was dark and bitter as hemlock. Something warned Rilian to say absolutely nothing.

"That cheating bastard!"

Wynne gave a hiss of indignation. "Watch your mouth, Loghain Mac Tir - unless you have forgotten the company you now keep!"

"It is not _my_ company I worry about but my former son-in-law's! Do you not see the familiar tone with which the Empress writes him - as if my daughter were not already his wife?"

"Cailan loved Anora with every ounce of his heart. It was plain for all to see. The only thing that ever stood between them was you."

"Are you blind? The plot is plain as day within these letters! Eamon, acting as Cousland's stalking horse, had brokered a marriage between Cailan and the Empress. Cailan ordered - _ordered_ - Eamon to remain at Redcliffe rather than march to Ostagar! And the bloody, bloody Chantry had orders to remain in Denerim. Why? So he had a ready-made force strong enough to put down all resistance to his schemes. Love or no, Cailan was going to cast my daughter aside and wed himself to that bitch, Celene. In a single vow, Orlais would gain all that they could never win by war! And what would Ferelden gain? Our fool of a King could strut about and call himself an Emperor."

"And what of peace? Would it not have brought that at least?"

"I would have thought age had granted you more wisdom, madam. Peace just means fighting someone else's enemies in someone else's war for someone else's reasons."

Rilian hung back, put a hand on Rylock's shoulder.

"Yes?"

It was impossible to tell what Rylock was thinking: her face was emotionless as marble.

"Rylock: what about the Chantry? What are you going to do if the Grand Cleric gets involved in Orlesian politics?"

"Warden," Rylock sighed and removed Rilian's hand. "I am a knight of the Maker, sworn to fight for Him. How can I become involved in a war that isn't holy? A Templar knight doesn't draw her sword against her fellow man - only against maleficarum and darkspawn. You know this. So what else could I possibly do?"

"Yes, but things are different now. The Grand Cleric doesn't seem to be worrying about the Blight. She's more preoccupied with Orlesian politics."

"Warden," Rylock's voice was stern, "You are wise beyond your years but you are not qualified to speak of our Order. Despite the...regrettable machinations of a few, the Divine is as close to perfection as a human being may come. Nothing has changed about that and nothing will."

_Oh Rylock, you're so innocent. Don't you know that _everything_ changes? Except, of course, for the futile squabbling. It seems to me that the squabbling will never end._

Loghain affected great surprise. "So: the Grand Cleric's machinations were - _regrettable_? You admit it?"

"Indeed," Rylock answered, without missing a beat, "But among the Chantry, she stands out. Among your fellow nobles, who would notice?"

Loghain was surprised into a bark of laughter. "You never quit, do you? Your superiors would be proud to know their indoctrination survived the darkspawn."

"They'd have the skin off my back if they thought it didn't. They'd say if any part of me makes it through this, it had better be the esprit de corps."

Both fell quiet after their exchange, the group backing wordlessly out of the forlorn tent.

Rilian took point once more as they headed towards the north-east, through a stone jungle of looming columns and shadowy statues. Rilian felt as if they had joined this chess game of the gods: they were tiny pieces, being moved against their will towards the long narrow corridor that led to the Tower. A young ghost ran beside her - a one-day Warden on her first mission...

_...and so he needs two Wardens to hold the torch?..._

_...we have our orders; c'mon let's go..._

_...and what do we do if the Archdemon appears?..._

_...we soil our drawers, that's what..._

_...can we join the battle afterward?..._

_...Maker watch over you, Duncan..._

A cracked fissure formed an ugly scar in the rock.

_...Rilian felt the air swish past as the projectile narrowly missed her. She gazed down at the valley below: the yawning breach where the darkspawn howled and gibbered and screamed. A statue of Andraste serenely watched the chaos..._

The statue was buried under twisting tendrils of unspeakable detritus. The stench hit her like a fist; her throat burned in the acid, nearly palpable fog. Andraste's arms now held a human sacrifice: a scarecrow whose putrid skin sloughed off like a wet, defiled garment. The blue tumescent face seethed with decomposition; the swollen tongue wallowed helplessly between the viscid lips. Turbid fluid splashed down to the ground. Dull, popped eyes glared in an agony of thwarted expression.

It was Cailan: magically preserved in gross decay, dark and bloated as some sleek marine creature, ruddered with the black-veined gas-distended sex.

Rilian sank down to her haunches, weakly drooping, and it seemed as if her thoughts originated with that fainter, more tenuous past self waiting like a ghost.

Wynne reached to support herself - found Rylock's arm - seeing not a Templar but needed help. Rilian was startled by how haggard she appeared.

Loghain ignored the dead - turned to the living - face tight and drawn. He said: "Our first priority is securing the Tower. Then the Joining supplies. Then the disposal of the remains.

"Maker," Wynne shuddered. "Remains. Oh Maker."

"The dear departed, if you prefer," Loghain said sardonically.

Rylock said: "We can't simply walk off and leave him here, General. You're a soldier, and I realize spiritual matters aren't your priority, but we must give him a burial with the proper services."

"I agree."

Allies now, Wynne and Rylock stood side by side like an immovable wall. Loghain growled in exasperation. "Men - to me."

Rilian hesitated just an instant - then followed after Loghain and the Night Eves, casting mage and Templar one last, apologetic glance.

* * *

The echoes of fading footsteps rang in the stillness, leaving Wynne and Rylock alone with their dead. The stink in the wind cut cold across the stone. Wynne shivered, feeling as if all light and warmth had fled, leaving her standing in an open grave.

Rylock set to work instantly - said: "This is no way to remember him" - steeled herself, and cut him down. Wynne marvelled that she could stand there, amid the crawling, unspeakable detritus, and perform such rites; a moment later, she stepped forward to help.

Sudden dizziness claimed her - she felt curiously unreal, as if she were draining away into the Fade. Her ears rang; her heart hammered. Swirling, burning colours blinded her. She watched them coalesce into surreal imagery.

A steel hand grasped her shoulder, steadied her. Rylock said: "Something's troubling you. It's not just what happened here."

"Nothing's troubling me."

"You're not feeling well. Sister Leliana told me you fought with a rage demon, and something happened to you. She wouldn't tell me more."

Wynne rounded to face Rylock. "If you think I'm an abomination, say so." The querulous tremor of her own voice irritated her; she deliberately pitched it lower.

Rylock said: "We Templars have meditation techniques that free the mind to help the body. I could show you. It would help you with this thing that makes you weak."

Wynne noted the care with which Rylock avoided words like _Spirit_ and _the Fade_. It was an immense concession, and a tribute to her friendship. She said: "We can talk about that at any time. What's really on my mind is: it should have been Boann's chance to escape Ostagar that day, not mine."

"Why? Because she's dead and you're alive?"

"No. Because when the darkspawn swarmed towards us - butchered the wounded in their beds - she stayed to defend them, and I ran."

Rylock's face hardened. "Then you never did a worse thing in your life."

"And what have _you_ run from, in an unthinking moment?" Wynne snapped.

"I never ran from a foe in my life!"

"No? Is not service an escape from freedom - from the responsibility of thinking for oneself? When you left Kinloch Hold to seek service at Kirkwall - wasn't it because it was easier to hand the responsibility to Knight Commander Meredith than take the risk of being wrong?"

"Better to be unsuited to thinking for oneself and have the humility to recognize it, than to insist on doing so anyway," Rylock returned dryly. "Was that not the mistake of so many at Ostagar's War Council?"

"And were you thinking for yourself or _not_ thinking when you murdered Aneirin?"

Rylock's dark eyes held an abstracted, inward-looking distance. At last, she said quietly, "Knight Commander Greagoir had told me he was no threat. But the Knight Commander had said those words before: about the Blood Mage who murdered Ser Guy - about First Enchanter Remille. So I chose to use my own judgement. When I caught up to the boy, he hit me with a Mind Blast - and I struck without thought. It was murder - and it was wrong. That is why I asked to serve in Kirkwall. At least there I _knew _the apostates were Blood Mages."

"So you chose to trust Knight Commander Meredith because you could not trust yourself - even though her Order is mired in politics? _Only maleficarum and darkspawn_, you said. Did you remember that when helping her depose Kirkwall's Viscount?"

Rylock gritted her teeth - and Wynne saw an echo of Ser Cauthrien in that stubborn, haunted look: loyalty warring with conscience. An odd pang went through her. She started to reach for Rylock's hand - stopped in mid-air, not wanting to give the Templar the opportunity to flinch from a mage's touch. She turned it into an awkward pat. For a fleeting instant, the shared memory of that night of grass and darkness leapt between them. Deeply precious; deeply wrong. Never to be regretted - and never to be repeated. Between them it was understood - words would only damage it. Just that small physical contact, that almost furtive touch, and they moved apart.

"Wouldn't it have been better," Wynne asked softly, "To choose to learn from past mistakes - trusting yourself to make the right choice next time?"

"I never thought, before, that I should choose. Or even that I could. Templars must obey without question when fighting mages: there's no time."

"And yet - you are here. Against the Orders of the Grand Cleric. You can still decide who is worthy of trust - and even then decide each time if something is right or wrong."

She was rewarded by one of Rylock's rare smiles - a shaft of light in a dusty room.

It seemed to illuminate Wynne's regrets, her memories of this place: they whirled like dust motes in a sunbeam. "Do you ever think about being forgiven?"

Thoughtfully, Rylock said: "The only ones who have the right to do that are dead. Nor will regrets bring them to life. And seeking forgiveness - or anything at all - from the Maker seems...presumptuous. I just want Him. Only that. It is not His punishment I fear but His withdrawal. We can only face Him with our sins - and try to do better."

Rylock's faith in that beautiful goodness - a relationship as real and visceral as any human lover - seemed to illuminate Wynne's Spirit of Faith as a shadow and a thought. For a moment, she knew an envy that nearly brought her to tears. It was, she mused, ironic punishment for her earlier cruel impulse to shake Rylock's beliefs. Rylock had meant none, but she knew its fitness.

Before she had the chance to speak, Loghain's raw, anguished shout shattered the frozen air. "Templar - Healer - _quickly_!"

An icy hand squeezed Wynne's heart like a fist. Rylock was already moving. Wynne followed her, at a run.

* * *

Although Loghain and the Warden knew where the Tower was, it took half-an-hour of worried scouting to assure all was clear. Surana and ten of his men formed a perimeter, perched upon the wooden stockades. The remaining ten accompanied them inside, the Warden leading. Using his dagger, Loghain prised the doors open. When they stepped inside, it was to find themselves sinking into a chill, repellent atmosphere. Loghain struck sparks and flint from a small leather box. Transferring the small glow to rags spread with pitch and tied to a stick created a torch. They advanced slowly. The statues inside leaned drunkenly against the stone walls, from where the emissary's Stonefist had smashed them. Dark, freckled here and there with tendrils of taint, they seemed to be asking to decay in peace.

The long stone antechamber was rank with mould and long inky steaks of tar-like taint. The carved archways above cast shadows that writhed in the torchlight, creating ghostly, unsettling movement. Blank, almost senile-looking windows let in grey light from outside. Motes of dust danced in the heavy, soup-like haze. The large, grey, vacuous chamber beyond echoed its emptiness through fibrous veils of cobwebs and taint.

The Warden found her voice first. It bounced off the circular walls, echoing and re-echoing, filling the space with a hollow timbre. Abashed, she lowered it to a whisper. "It smells dead. I have a bad feeling about this - like it ought to stink worse."

Loghain knew her imagination saw what the torchlight wouldn't reveal: the soldiers who'd died here, coffined within the chamber, entombed forever. Neither of them would speak directly about that. He offered compromise. "We don't have to go all the way in. Our priority is sealing off the...tunnels." He cursed himself for that minute hesitation: the unspoken acknowledgement that only a few yards away in uncaring darkness lay the tunnels that had brought death - where the female survivors would have been dragged down, down...to be dissolved and remade.

At the edge of the torch's ruddy light, the Warden was a dim, bent figure, moving in a crouch. Looting - again? Loghain wondered sourly. Hadn't what happened here cured her of that? "Over here," she beckoned, her fingers moving like erratic, windblown petals.

The side-room was an eerily disorderly jumble. Precise aisles and shelves were a darkspawn-smashed landscape of refuse. Light barely reached the corners of the square stone room. The blackness of the vault overhead was vague, threatening. Wavering shadows suggested spirits that resented trespass.

"I thought - maybe - we could use the supplies," the Warden suggested in a small voice. She picked up a leather surcoat - only to drop it with a wordless cry of revulsion. "Mould. Mildew. Nasty stuff." Her voice thrummed imperfect echo. The offending leather sighed when it landed, collapsing in on itself. Thin, powdery clouds puffed into the stillness.

All cloth was ruined: some already disintegrated. Food supplies were foul with rot. The Warden mourned their loss. "They weren't much, but we could have used them. We wouldn't have had to hunt on the way back to camp." She picked up one of the wooden crates. Noxious glop oozed out. She hurriedly dropped the mess. "Well - they're garbage now."

"Always were, Warden," Loghain grunted, soldier humour leaning towards the dry. "I remember: the smoked boar wasn't bad. First you added some pepper, then..." He stopped. Resumed sharply, "We'll head to the breach."

The air seemed to burn his throat and made breathing painful. He spat continually to get rid of a raging thirst. His eyes burned and watered.

Loghain led the party down damp-caked steps into a tactile darkness that took them into its frigid depths like a well. The decaying ribs of sundered barrels, furred with mould, could still be seen across the taint-slicked flagstones. The Warden bent down to pick up an old bottle. Its contents slid from it like pulp. A curled spider rolled across the floor, spilled from the bottle like a withered grape.

As they continued, the air seemed to congeal around Loghain into diseased vapours, smothering him with the sealed-in stench of decay. Their footsteps echoed as they passed beneath the stone into the lip of one of the tunnels. Thought at first sight it looked like a narrow crevice, further investigation showed an earth-lined burrow large enough for a man. The torchlight illuminated the straggling tendrils of taint hanging like lengths of matted grey hair inside it. Loghain stared at it - not moving, not understanding why.

_Run. Get out. Now._

The thought was his own, but it came to him so urgently he turned around as if one of his men had spoken.

Quietly, wonderingly, Loghain asked himself: _Run from what? If any darkspawn remain the Warden would have sensed them._

His legs suddenly buckled beneath him and he leaned forward, hands clasping his knees, gagging with the struggle not to vomit in front of his men. The ground writhed beneath him. With great effort, he straightened up. The Warden helped him, hands around his back. Ignoring all those tiresome customs between noble and commoner, Elf and human, she patted him roundly.

"Atta boy, Loghain - nice and slowly - got any legs yet?"

Loghain scowled and pulled away, irritated with himself for the show of weakness. Dammit - he couldn't afford to get sick - not now! Not while he had a country to defend...

"You can't be tainted - you haven't had any contact with darkspawn," the Warden reassured him - a little too brightly. Loghain determinedly refused to think of Rowan: dead after a long mysterious illness contracted sometime after leaving the Deep Roads.

"It would be poetic justice, I suppose," he said drily: thinking of his fatal mismanagement of the Blight that had caused most of the southern Bannorn to be destroyed. His assessment of Orlais as being the greater threat was so badly off the mark he was appalled. Chevaliers could be driven out again; darkspawn brought annihilation. He had no excuse: Maric had told him of the witch's warning twenty years ago and he had dismissed it. And his actions at the border had achieved nothing beyond ensuring the chevaliers had the perfect excuse to invade, at a time when the Civil War and Blight rendered them unable to defend themselves. Lives had been in his hands and he had failed; there was no excuse for that.

He could tell from the pale, pinched look on the Warden's face that she was coming perilously close to agreeing with him; he saw, in her eyes, memories of kin dead from the Tevinter plague; the faintest trace of vindictive pleasure sticking to her like spikes on cactus, the accusations she hadn't voiced still hovering around her like a swarm of hornets. But she caught herself, the mobile, expressive features turned soft, almost ashamed - which was kinder to him than he deserved. A moment later the white lips hard-shut with sympathy spread into her trademark, snake-eating grin:

"Bah - you're too nasty to come down with darkspawn plague: the taint would drown in the bile!"

"Hey, now," Loghain complained without heat.

"There is no "hey now". Come on; we have work."

Nevertheless, his re-entry into the tunnel was difficult, each step requiring a new summoning of the will to move. In the freezing half-light all movement felt like defiance. His body lagged behind his craving to be quick - to be done with this molestation of the dead and to seal the tunnels.

The Warden insisted on taking the lead - and as she was the only one who could sense the creatures, Loghain agreed. She moved off, stealthy and quick. Suddenly, she stopped. Her head went up, alert, then she turned to him. Loghain's surprise was blunted by a sudden incongruous awareness of her. Curiously tilted eyes swept around; bright, lively. High cheekbones accentuated the full mouth, now down-curved with stern intent. Her hair was a scarlet frame for delicate, expressive features. Grace surmounted the blunt, ugly crossbow in her hands. She reached down - patted her mabari's head - and continued to seek, turning. Ravenous was alert, disturbed.

"Darkspawn?" Loghain mouthed silently.

The Warden shook her head. "I sense nothing. But I hear music."

Loghain heard nothing. Hair prickled on the back of his neck.

"I'm just going to..."

"Wait!"

The Warden ignored him, moving forward with a speed the larger man could not match. Loghain cursed savagely.

Stone and lumps of dislodged earth suddenly scattered like mice at their feet. And with them, like the gases of decay a noxious stench far worse than any they had encountered emerged to blanch Loghain's face in an instant. Barely able to restrain his nausea, he forced himself forward. The air rapidly became discoloured, while the torch guttered out, leaving them in total darkness. He grabbed for the Warden's arm.

"Get out! Now!"

The Warden gave a cry of terror that turned his bowels to water. Her arm was wrenched from his by something he couldn't see. He lunged for her - missed...

Then choking dust and earth erupted all around him as the tunnel collapsed ahead. He crashed futilely against a solid wall, shouting for the Warden. Then he stopped, turned, and backed away into impenetrable darkness, calling:

"Templar - Healer - _quickly!_"

* * *

Rilian knew she was alive.

The scant air she was able to draw into her lungs was thick with taint. Every breath scoured her. Rough stone pressed into her spine: her limbs seemed frozen in place. She struggled frantically, but couldn't move anything more than her fingers. Pain like a caress of flame burned her muscles; terror made her gag on each shallow breath.

Something like this had happened to her before. Arl Howe had tied her to a stone slab, limbs spread-eagled on top of it. A black hood had choked her, and the darkness had been absolute on all sides, and she had understood that sensations of fear and asphyxiation meant nothing - that no-one could hear her - that his assault made her a ghost. A nothingness freely possessed by a monster. She had felt her own spirit leeching out into the surrounding blackness.

It came to her without drama, almost without surprise, that she could do the same here. She could let go of herself and allow the darkness to bear her away. That instant, eternal plummet and soar into the vast, redemptive, ruinous dark the Archdemon had taught her to know and fear and love. Then, whatever happened to her, she would be safe because she would be gone.

As soon as the idea occurred to her, she knew it would be easy. As easy as her mother's surrender to despair, after the guards took her beauty. But even as the thought came to her she heard a series of clicking, chittering, splashing noises. And the sound of dry, ragged breathing beside her: impossibly weak, crushed, but there. A black tendril flickered - tickling against her mind. Something - some_one_ - reaching out to her. Not a darkspawn - a _Warden_.

Because of that, she couldn't fail, couldn't let go.

She struggled to turn her head, and the movement dislodged a small fragment of stone. There was a series of loud, hollow reverberations as it fell...down...down...until at last there was a sullen plunge into water. _Maker. I'm above a chasm. _At the same moment, there came a sound nearby: the scrape and grate of a stone slab being pushed aside. A faint gleam of light flashed suddenly through the gloom. She couldn't see the figure who carried the torch: it was skeletal, floating. Instead she turned in the direction of the mind-touch - and saw a filthy, haggard shape strapped onto a slab beside her. From its wet, twisting mouth came a whistling groan - the decayed fragment of a human voice:

"By whatever means _necessary._.."

The spoiled vocal instrument made a mangled gasp of the last word - an inhuman snake-pit noise that Rilian felt as a cold flicker of ophidian tongues within her ears. Rilian looked effortlessly past the corrupted face and wide, milky eyes to the real eyes: those of the encoffined man. Tormented eyes foreseeing madness - and craving it. His real self was just the flicker of moonlight already half-drowned in the encroaching night.

"I will, sir," she whispered.

She tore her eyes away: looked down...down towards the source of the unspeakable sloshing noises below: the unimaginable sound of ripe pods bursting wetly open. The creature down there, its many tentacles writhing in anguish, encapsulated all the horror of Rilian's approaching fate. Terror and outrage wrenched her spirit in brutal alteration as if trying to tear it naked from its captive frame. She rolled her head in this deadlock, mouth beginning to split in the slow birth of a mind-emptying howl.

The gliding figure watched this, giving a single nod that might have been approbation. The creature she had communicated with last night sought her eyes. Its own were milky white - the grey skin of its face stretched so tautly over sharp bones it seemed about to split open. The face was more humanlike than that of any darkspawn she had seen: most darkspawn noses were rotten stumps, lips eaten away to reveal rows of sharp teeth. This had a human nose, human lips - a graft held in place by a glittering golden mesh - a crown that swept upward like the thorns of a dead tree. The living flesh was slowly being eaten away by the leprosies of taint, already rotting around the edges where the Blight disease was eating into the new, younger skin. It was death, peering through a stolen mask of life. In her stomach was an ant-like crawliness. She remembered a hot, bitter summer's day of her childhood, and the maggots she had found, with horror, in the belly of a dead cat.

The thing reached out with slender arms that tapered to long elegant fingers: pale, attenuated like the branches of a dying tree. _The arms are those of a woman. And does she now wear the old, decaying stumps?_ The alien hands, with the light, solicitous touch of friends at sickbeds, rested on her naked thigh.

The absence of sensation made the touch more dreadful than if felt. It showed her that the tubes within her captive flesh had already pumped their poison into her veins. The nightmare she still desperately denied at heart had annexed her body while she - holding head and arms free - had already more than half-drowned in its paralysis. There, from her chest on down, lay her nightmare part: a nothingness freely possessed by an unspeakability.

Memories of Howe broke through carefully constructed defences. It was as if she had been asleep to the reality that it must all happen again. It was as if that night were all nights. As if everyone - Loghain, Wynne, Rylock - had conspired to lull her into an insane sense of safety.

It was a terrible awakening. Nothing made sense except the certainty of what would come. Her blindness up to this point was a kind of meta-horror, as if she were only this moment waking to the truth. She bit down on her own tongue to muffle the sounds of her distress. The creature was so close. So _close_.

She could hardly draw breath. The choking air was thick with taint - the air of nightmare that was in league with him. And this was worse than Howe. The end result echoed the feculent splashing and hissing she heard below.

_Maker. Help me. Anything but that. Anything at all. Just not that filth...PLEASE!_

The creature stopped, cocked its head as if trying to make sense of her.

"I am called the Architect. I apologize for restraining you," it said - the rotten tongue making the words slushy and indistinct. Nonetheless, the tone was urbane, soft and oddly resonant - the dry, gentle voice of a scholar. The incongruity almost sent hysterical peals of laughter clawing from Rilian's throat; she choked them back.

"_Restraining_ me? You experimented on them all - all the survivors - including the Warden Commander. What is your purpose? _What are you_?" Panic erupted in the question that she tried to bury by answering herself instantly: "Resolute, yes. That, surely. A darkspawn that doesn't hear the Song - that thinks and plans. How did you prevent me sensing you?"

The darkspawn held up a curious black brooch. Its inky, oily darkness seemed oddly akin to the glistening smears of taint that wound around the chamber.

"I gave these to a member of your Order, twenty years ago," it explained, "The magic prevents us from sensing you - or the other way round."

The voice's sinister colouration of pitch and stress grew yet more marked - the phrases slid from the tongue with a cobra's seeking sway, winding their liquid rhythms around Rilian until a gap in her resistance should let them pour through to slaughter the little courage left in her. To ease the nightmare's suffocating pressure - to thrust out some flicker of her own will against its engulfment - she asked:

"Who did you give this to?"

"A woman named Warden Commander Genevieve and her brother. They were to be the architects of my peace - a peace between your kind and ours. We planned to destroy the remaining Old Gods before they could rise as Archdemons, thus freeing my kind from their compulsion. Alas, we were betrayed. By a mage we trusted: the Orlesian First Enchanter. Your King Maric and his General stopped them."

_The first Warden Maric brought to Ferelden was a woman - best warrior I've ever seen._

Loghain had encountered this creature before! Wardens conspiring with darkspawn - and an Orlesian plot at the heart of it! _No wonder he didn't trust us..._

"Once the Old Gods were dead, how would you have achieved this peace? Could you stop infecting our kind? Could you stop spreading disease?"

"Yes. The First Enchanter promised a magical plague that would transform all your kind to Wardens. Once your species became immune, there would be no need for violence."

The dead eyes sought the living and found Rilian staring back, grinning insanely. "That was your plan? It didn't occur to you that with every woman sterile, and immune to your corruption, both our species would face extinction?"

"That was the flaw, yes. But no longer. That is why I have transformed the beings you see before you. Once he was First among your kind - now he will be First among mine. Once she was Mother to your city. Now she will be Mother to a race. She still remembers who she was. She remembers you."

As the words wormed beneath her skin a low moan escaped her - as unstoppable by courage or act of will as her inability to move her dead limbs. One breath away from drowning in grief.

"Your own species will have to do the same of course. Keep a selection of breeding females within spheres of protective magics, safe from the taint."

"Clever corpse!" Rilian cried, "Clever carnivorous corpse! Please don't think I'm criticising. Who am I to criticise? But I'm confused." She paused, savouring the monster's attentive silence and her own buoyancy in the hysterical levity that had unexpectedly liberated her. "How could there be peace, even so. _You will still need our females to reproduce_."

Her gibe was answered to her own terror. The creature shook its head slowly. "No. That is why I called her The Mother to a race. Her Children - a new form of our kind - are the larval form of their parent. Proto-Broodmothers, if you will."

Rilian's terror became unbearable. Time seemed to be pouring out like the sands of an hourglass, while she by monstrous winds was being swept towards some black precipice. She knew what was waiting there, and, shuddering, crushed with her own hands her burning lids, as though she could rob her very brain of sight, and drive her eyeballs back into their cave. It was useless. Her mind had its own food which it devoured and her imagination, made grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted by pain, danced like some foul puppet and grinned through living masks. Then, suddenly, the hourglass turned. Time ran out no more, and horrible images raced on in front, dragged a hideous future from its womb, and showed it to her. She stared at it. Its very horror made her stone.

"Your kind will overwhelm mine," she said - her voice stricken, sick.

"And what is "mine"?" the creature asked, "Your kind are already being overwhelmed by the humans. That is the nature of evolution. Elves will be replaced by humans - mundanes with mages. Why is it so much worse to think of them being replaced by my kind instead?"

"Because you are not a species," Rilian whispered. "Because you are born sick - dying creatures with only a brief butterfly moment of existence. How many years do you have? How long could you have lived if you did not steal life from your subjects? A year? Three? Your kind struggles to free the Old Gods because their Song is the only light you can know. Once free, will you create your own songs? Will you create anything? Love? Will some part of you live on after death?"

"Will _you_?" the creature asked with remote sad humour. "All lives are chance-formed biological engines, vastly isolated in time and space. Then entropy...atrophy...death."

"But there is something more - something else..." Rilian began. It took great effort to say this. The dying creature exerted a kind of gravity, causing her mind to fall into its mode of thought. The old, eroded face was a desert her question got lost in; the words came out of her mouth stillborn.

"Motes in space," the creature sighed, "Wound up by accident...decaying by necessity. Do you know how my kind were conceived? A plot by long-ago soldiers from the Anderfels who struggled to find a way to resist the Tevinter Blood Magic. They found a creature who had once been a man - a magister named Corypheus - tainted and infected by the demons of the Black City. They spread his infection - created the first Broodmothers - trying to fight back against the Empire. And they nearly succeeded. Without them, your prophet would never have been able to bring them to their knees. You see: we were born from men. Do we not have the rights of men - the right to make the best we can of the scrap of life given us?"

"The best you can would be to help me," Rilian whispered. "Help me find a cure for the taint - a cure for your kind and mine."

"It is not possible. Perhaps for your kind - but not for mine. Too much of our very essence is wound through by taint. Destroy that and we are destroyed. All I can do is work to extend our life spans - survive and adapt. If our kind overwhelm yours than that is the way."

The words were dry - all strictest scholarship - but Rilian sensed something else beneath. The seeds of a long-germinal, blazing, jealous hatred for the humanity who had created and sentenced him only to die - nothing but a lump of worm meat, toiling futility in the womb of the earth. The creature spoke of "evolution" and "adaptation" - Rilian felt the truth of this grandiloquence. A barren supremacy of power over lives vastly wealthier in the vividness and passionate concern with which life for them was imbued.

"Warden - I so much want your understanding. I want your help."

"We are not animals: we choose what we bring into the world - and I will bring forth no monsters. We Elves may be a dying breed - it may be true that humankind will reap the whirlwind, the future dreams and life on Thedas. Should I care that my descendants will have rounded ears and heavy bones? No more than Loghain should care whether his great-grandchildren speak Orlesian. The best part of us: the stories, the honest purpose, the honour, goes on. That kind of change is natural. To encoffin women in their own bodies, mute and limbless," and as her eyes sought the milky orbs her gaze held mortal challenge, "to unleash a plague that renders half a species sterile - is evil beyond mercy. And I will stop you - _by whatever means necessary_."

"And what would I have to do to make you trust me? Kill the Mother - kill every one of my kind?"

Rilian's voice held a freighted, deadly calm as she echoed Rylock's words: "Even that would not be enough. The darkspawn I trust is the one who kills himself."

She stopped, exhausted - but then, as in last night's dream, unbidden and uncalled words compelled her to speak them. Her voice took on a heavy, forbidding timbre. "Poor, poor creature. To wait so long, only to poison the field again, before the seeding. You cannot make good fruit from a bad tree. You cannot create life from death. The false Messiah will learn the truth. You will know sorrow and punishment."

The Architect seemed to sag, as though the weight of unacknowledged despair were crushing him. In response, he suddenly rushed at Rilian, white eyes pools of hatred in the hollowed gauntness of his stolen face. It was the hatred of the dying for the living. His taint-eaten features loomed over and over as if in repeated lightning flashes as he attached needle and tubes to her flesh; the eyes and mouth concentrating; the taut flesh of the forehead stretched in gentle surprise at the first splash of blood on his robes.

_There aren't opposing philosophies. There aren't ideas. There's just whether you keep or lose your blood…_

Maker, Maker, Maker please - her own voice strangled in her throat, a tube rationing air to her windpipe. Her rage rage rage at the paralysis constraining her body like a block of ice. All the muscles of her face straining to keep her eyes closed so she wouldn't see what she couldn't help but hear.

And still the face flashed in her mind. A metamorphosis. No words now - just the rattle of his dry breathing - the grave-stench of his breath - her intuiting that this took him to a place beyond words, that words would have hindered him. This was elemental, instinctual - this was survival. Nature red in tooth and claw. His silence measured the infinite distance between them, further away from contact with anything human. Her terrible realization that none of her resources would work on him: because even a monster like Howe had been human - but this creature was not.

The descent into the place beneath words transformed the falsely human features into something else. The unpent rage poured through the milky stare in a brilliant coruscation - devouring jewel eyes disinterested as glass. Rilian marvelled at the radiance - the creature seemed gilded with immortality in that moment, like a hunting cat passing its life half out of time.

Then all of a sudden came a tapping - tapping at the rock...

* * *

Rylock and Wynne joined Loghain and the Night Elves by the wall of rubble. A low moan passed through Wynne's tight-pressed lips when she saw it. As if in response, the Warden's mabari raised his head, mourning in a series of high, wild howls.

"A person will suffocate in there."

"Not one with a Warden's strength and a temper like a wildcat," Loghain answered with gruff assurance. "You," he snapped at Alim Surana, "We'll need timber to shore up as we clear the rock - get it. Murl and Clayden: search the ruins for hammers and pickaxes. Four of us working at the rock at the same time: Rylock, Pir, Tia, you're with me. Wynne - keep us going with healing."

"Do you want any blackpowder?" asked Surana.

"And bring the tunnel down on our heads? Use your brains, man."

Within an hour they had cleared fifteen feet of tunnel, breaking the larger slabs of stone with hammers and prising the pieces out of the jam. Rylock's muscles ached and her hands were raw. She kept going. She saw Loghain inspect one of his thumbs. The nail was torn loose, standing up like a tombstone; he took it between his teeth, pulled it off and spat it onto the ground.

At last the pitch black hole loomed before them. Clicks and hisses of alien creatures and whirring machinery filled the darkness. The smell of taint was overpowering. Then another smell drifted towards Rylock - more immediate. The blue-crackling smell of lyrium, like bottled lighting. Wynne was holding the flask to her lips. The mage paused - turned - and offered it to her:

"I sense an emissary's magic - don't you? We'll need this."

"I am meant to only take it once a day - and the lyrium I take is consecrated. No longer the same liquid you mages take but the Waters Of The Fade. It is the Maker's living spirit, within us."

"It's not the merit of the Chantry that consecrates the lyrium - it's the Maker himself. So why should He not consecrate waters held in your hands? We are doing His work."

Why was the mage asking this of her? Rylock was too exhausted to think clearly. She smelled the purity of the waters - a cold balm, a whisper of holiness - and, overlaying that, the hissing and soft snarls beyond the hole: a gnawing remorseless sound that somehow fed the obscure anguish that the other soothed. Her stomach rasped with steady oscillations of pain. The wingbeat of strange shadows seemed to close in about her head.

Her gaze sought the torchlight. _Wherever the light be set, demons shall flee in fear..._ The light swelled around Wynne until she floated on a carpet of yellow flame. If Wynne was right about the origins of Templars then the lyrium Rylock took was no different to that which Wynne carried. And if the Maker was in her than He was in Wynne too, and all the rest was nonsense. She took the flask - held it in both hands. They trembled - but her voice rang out strong and sure:

"_Domine non sum dignus_. This is Thy light, taken into me. This is my body - given up for Thee."

But instead of drinking it herself she passed it to Wynne first. The hands of a mage lifted the flask of Holy Water. Rylock half-expected it to shatter in her hand. She took a long sip - then handed it back. Rylock drank - and felt the mortal form of the Maker's light sear through flesh and bone in a cleansing wave.

Wynne raised her eyebrows in unspoken question.

"If the Maker is in me then He is in you, too, against these creatures of darkness."

"Meaning: mages are awful - but darkspawn are worse?" Wynne asked sarcastically.

"Essentially," Rylock answered mildly - the very blandness of her response calculated to cause maximum irritation.

"Oh you!" Wynne gritted her teeth and - with no small amount of satisfaction - began to gather her mana field. The waves of her healing energy washed over Rylock - the very warmth and caring delivered with defiant pride: take _that_!

Then the rustling, hissing creatures poured out of the darkness - clawing, slashing, howling. Rylock and Loghain fought side by side, swords dancing in tandem. The mabari was a series of black, leaping flames - here, there - savaging attackers. Behind them, she was aware of Wynne's magic washing over them in gentle waves.

The battle was a howling chaos. Somehow, they pushed forward into the yawning breach, driving the creatures back. They emerged into a vast chamber that glittered with chilling apparatus. Pools of light and shadow melted and writhed over the Warden's supine form. A thin, skeletal creature was working over her. More darkspawn poured from side-tunnels, converging like congealing blood. They roared - and the stone chamber repeated the sounds over and over. It was like existing inside a deafening drum. Beside her, Pir Surana fought his way to Rilian - raised his bow. An arrow sped towards the robed creature: shattered before it hit. Rylock ran to him - gathered her Templar powers. Her Holy Smite blossomed outward - wreathed the creature in an azure glow. But a writhing blackness had already budded from the darkspawn's staff.

Surana clutched at the pool of shadow that spread across his torso. It appeared to be _eating _him. Rylock watched in dull horror as his screams turned to shrieks. He spasmed wildly as the darkness flowed over him...legs, arms, head. The screams ended in a terrible liquid gurgle. The creature didn't try to block Rylock's power - it simply waved its hand, and more creatures rushed her. She fought for her life. Dimly, she was aware of Alim reaching what remained of his father - his grief-stricken howl - then his movements as he worked to pull Rilian free of the tubes. She and Wynne reached them and half-dragged, half-carried Rilian towards the breach. The Warden's legs dragged across the ground as if dead - her naked form was covered in puncture-marks, caked with the filth of taint. She did not seem to be aware of them. Slowly, slowly, the party was forced to back away, drawing closer to each other, fighting back to back in a frenzy of desperation.

An arrow whistled from the swarm, flew past Rylock's ear. The sound was still in the air when the emissary's dry, hissing whisper ordered: "Take the females alive!"

Wynne's face was ashen; a picture of dread. Rylock moved to her side - supported her - turned the edge of her sword of mercy to Wynne's throat. "You - Rilian - then me," she whispered.

She knew Wynne's quiet smile reflected the irony that a Templar would - after all - be responsible for her death.

Loghain yelled to make himself heard. "Here!" he shouted, tossing Rylock one of a pair of swirling globes that held Dworkin's latest, most unstable formula. "When I tell you, smash that on the ground. Don't fail. I'll see you both in the Fade."

Loghain's calm assurance impressed Rylock. She took the grenade in her left fist. The right moved her blade away from Wynne - ready to face the darkspawn. Bunched muscles steadied down in an attitude of quiet control.

Like surf, the darkspawn poured around their quarry. They darted and dodged, forbidden to kill. Loghain and Rylock, unconstrained, did terrible damage. The Teyrn's sword reaped a fearsome harvest. The emissary seemed to understand the sight of the globes: at some unseen signal, the creatures withdrew - following their master back into the chamber. The darkspawn melted away like spilled ink; the suffocating pressure eased. Rylock found herself and the others on the safe side of the breach.

She ran to Wynne and the Warden. Rilian did not rise. She sat with knees drawn up and arms around her naked legs. Wynne unfastened her cloak and draped it about her. Ravenous nuzzled her, panting, licking her face. When she didn't respond, he gave a thin, worried whine.

Rilian looked at them strainingly, with sunken eyes, as if finding it urgent to remember who they were.

Loghain caught up to them. One sweep of his hawk-blue eyes took in her nakedness, her frozen expression. "Did they…" His own face seemed to freeze, and Rylock knew what he would not ask.

Rilian rubbed the back of a filth-encrusted hand across her brow, and blinked. "Did they rape me?" She gave the dry rictus of a smile. "Oh no - the Architect didn't touch me. Not that way. Wardens are sterile - as incapable of bearing spawn as any other children. He wanted my blood. We take theirs to develop immunity to taint. What they take is our resistance to the Song. He wants to make a new world. He dissolved a good woman - made her a monster. The Mother to Children who will never sleep, never dream, never love. I couldn't see her - I could only hear."

"Look. Look here. Drink this." Wynne held out a healing potion. The wash of her azure light bathed the Warden in an eerie glow. After the first swallow, Rilian took the flask from Wynne and emptied it thirstily.

"That's better. Can you stand? We have to leave this awful place."

"I've seen it before," Rilian said suddenly, "Laryn. I looked into her eyes before I killed her."

"Yes. I know."

"A Warden must be able to look on anything. I stared down at Vaughan after what I did to him: blinded, unmanned, stinking of blood and vomit and voided bowels."

"Never mind that now - we have to go."

"He was birthed from the darkness - walking softly - wearing a crown of thorns. Wearing a mask of life."

"Rilian, are you listening? Can you hear what I say?"

"Be quiet. I hear the Song."

To her own horror, Rylock understood what she meant. That fierce, heavy drumming, like a heartbeat…the sense of something scratching, scratching at her mind. She wanted to sink into a bath of Holy Water, wash the echoes from mouth and ears and brain.

Rilian sat with hands on knees, eyes upturned, head tilted up and a little leftward. Rylock could see whites below the iris. Rilian must be found, wherever she was. She ought not to be left alone - not even for a moment.

Gently, she said: "Warden: think of Andraste in the fire - a human body reduced, inch by inch, to ashes and dust. But now she is with the Maker. As are the dead of Ostagar. Do not follow them into the Dark - for they are in the Light."

Quietly, insistently, Wynne said: "You're safe now. I'm here. I promised you I'd be here till the end. I love you. You are the daughter I never had. Look, it's finished, it's over now."

She put out her hand. Rilian's came out and touched it, then closed on it crushingly, so that Rylock heard Wynne catch her breath in mingled relief and pain. "You're with me now," Wynne repeated, "I'd die for you. You're my daughter."

After a moment, the vise-like grip relaxed a little - Rilian's face lost its mask-like stiffness, and looked only rather ill. She gazed vaguely at their joined hands. Her other arm wound around Ravenous' neck and shoulder. She blinked as he nuzzled her and licked her face; came back to herself. Slowly, tottering a little, she rose to her feet.

"Mother," she whispered, "He called his breeder: "The Mother".

"Broodmother," Loghain said succinctly, but the Warden shook her head. "He said she remembered who she was. Nameless now: only her title remains." Her voice broke on the last word. She wept against a slab of rock, clawed fingers digging into the rubble: a mourner sprawled across the gravestone of a lost loved one.

Wynne and Loghain were suddenly white-faced in a terrible realization Rylock did not quite understand. She had an intimation of a truth more appalling than Blood Magic; more than she had ever wanted to know. She wanted to join the Warden. To rest. Her stomach rolled menacingly.

"Move out," Loghain told Rilian roughly. "We have work. Then you can cry." Wynne hissed a protest - but Rylock understood they must seal the tunnels at once. Instead of the poisonous anger Rylock anticipated, Rilian merely pulled away. Unsteady but determined, she put one dogged foot ahead of the other. Wynne led the Warden away, both supporting each other.

"Get to the open." The Warden nodded, expressionless. Rylock stepped forward, offering Loghain her aid.

"We need to use Dworkin's grenades to collapse every side tunnel," Loghain ordered, "And then a larger slab of rock to seal the breach. It won't hold them back indefinitely - but long enough for the army to get here." Rylock nodded curtly, and joined the sixteen surviving Night Elves. The air seemed even worse than before. It was like inhaling mud. Simultaneously, she noticed how raggedly Loghain breathed - as if gasping for air. He saw her look and grunted. "It can't be the dust. I think we're just out of shape."

In spite of herself, Rylock snapped response. "I must be in really bad condition, then, because my eyes hurt too."

"Don't yell at me."

Rylock knew she should break off the staring match - knew her infantile petulance was wrong. Dangerous. Embarrassment flooded over her. Perversely, she remained silent.

It was very confusing. Even her coordination seemed to work against her. Clumsiness was a function of the poor light conditions, she decided. Loghain had them pick up the stone they had dislodged, and pile it to block the tunnels. Rylock dumped hers with a careless thud. Loghain barked at her.

Rylock glared at him. Her concentration failed quickly. Her angry gaze wandered off.

The remainder of the task passed in similar fashion, but the biting exchanges grew fewer. Two hours later, Rylock wiped a film of greasy, unpleasant sweat from her forehead as she deposited the last load of rock. Simultaneously, she noticed how heavily Loghain perspired. They were ridiculously tired. Rylock had once fought Blood Mages for five hours without stopping: Loghain, she was sure, had kept going longer than that during the rebellion. Collecting the rest of the grenades from their camp should have been nothing. Instead, it was demanding.

Outside, the dense iron-grey clouds made the day heavy and dull. Nonetheless, it was so much more welcoming than the Tower that something like euphoria lifted her. Then, crushingly, depression weighed in, making her yearn to abandon the entire project and bathe in the nearby stream. It took a strong exercise of will to continue.

The Night Elves worked hard. Loghain berated them anyhow. Rylock couldn't remember the Warden's mabari looking so nervous. Hangdog, she thought - he looks hangdog. She shouted at the dog to get away. The effort made her cough. That, in turn, made her even angrier.

Arranging the explosives to collapse each tunnel dragged. Readying the grenades became a comedy of errors, albeit one that garnered no laughter. Loghain admitted his schooling in their use was rudimentary. Rylock's was non-existent. Bickering constantly, fumbling sensitive explosives with the intense ineptitude of drunks, they finally determined the burning times of the wicks and actually managed to light them without blowing themselves up. By now, both ran rivers of sweat. Rylock found herself rubbing burning, watering eyes constantly. A grenade slipped from her sweat-soaked grip. She dived for it, startled by her own uncoordinated floundering. Loghain's best drill-field expletives soared.

They ignited the last of Dworkin's blackpowder with a torch. The sizzling flame seared down the length of the long wax-coated wick. The mabari loped into view. Loghain directed him to shelter and made him lie down. The Teyrn hung his head - for once looking more like a young boy than a gruff soldier. Rylock could tell he was ashamed of careless neglect that could have killed the dog.

The ground beneath the Tower heaved. A fierce storm of dirt and dust shot from the breach, followed very quickly by a hard, brittle crack. Then a deep, resonant rumble. A billowing, tumbling wall of dirty grey smoke and debris rolled out.

"Ashes to ashes," Rylock murmured, staring at the destruction, thinking of the Maker punishing the corrupt land of Tevinter. She couldn't hear the Song any more - but the strange pounding drumbeat continued in her blood. The ground was tilting under her. Her face was burning, but she was freezing cold. The world wavered and trembled in her vision. A greasy red-black film dropped in front of her eyes. Rylock thought of black ink, how it spread and spread, wringing colour from above and below, altering everything it touched.

She looked at Loghain's tired eyes and the jutting jaw that was meant to be fierce. To be left alive after his army was destroyed. The worst of all. To go on living. Any trace of animosity over Loghain's alliance with Uldred didn't seem to matter now. They'd both failed here. There also wasn't anything to say. Rylock certainly wouldn't have accepted comfort if she'd been forced to live beyond the lives of her men, so there wasn't any point foisting comfort on Loghain. Where Ostagar was concerned, neither one of them would ever feel any better than this.

"Come on," Loghain said harshly, "We need to seal the entrance with something large - that statue will do."

Rylock's hands, along with Loghain's and the Elves', carried the enormous statue to the breach.

_Andraste with blazing sword, standing guard over the Void forevermore…_

She couldn't remember ever working so hard - not even during Templar training when they buried one recruit in every twenty over so-called "training accidents". Her joints ached; her muscles felt like molasses. Sealing the tunnels had been challenge. Hiding the breach was devastating. Twice, both she and Loghain had to stop and seek privacy, where they were violently sick. Speculation over what could be the cause was listless, as though they spoke of strangers.

They moved the statue into place. Blood and sweat from barked knuckles, torn palms and stressed bodies stained it. At last, it balanced delicately, ready to be moved into place. Loghain said: "Hold the position right there. I'm changing my grip. I'll push it when you're clear."

Rylock nodded. She swayed on her feet. "Another step," Loghain said. He edged the statue forward. The weight of it drew Rylock's strength, sucked the air from her lungs.

"Watch! It's slipping this way," Loghain warned her. Rylock tried to redirect the weight. Missed.

The statue's momentum overwhelmed Loghain. It crushed Rylock's hands against rock of the breach. She screamed: a thin lance of sound.

The statue tilted. The crushing edge rose. Rylock fell backward, sat down. She hissed through gritted teeth, folding her body over the mangled hands.

Loghain eased the statue into its final resting place. Then he stepped back - reached to touch her.

"I'll get you to Wynne," he said.

Rylock struck at him with her elbow. "Leave me alone!" Saliva dripped from the corners of her mouth.

Loghain suddenly sank to his knees. His rolled-up eyes revealed nothing but whites.

Black spots danced across Rylock's vision. She tried to catch him as he toppled like a felled oak.

A moment later, her own world guttered into darkness.

* * *

Murky green light suffused the tent, as though it stood underwater. It shone off the sweat-streaked, sallow faces of their two patients; off Wynne's fine light hair as she bent to check Loghain's pulse. Rilian jerked upright. One hand inched out of her tight, warm huddle, edged open the tent flap. Translucent light flooded in. Tucked in a tight curl just outside, Ravenous stared back. His stomach rumbled discontent. That was what had awakened her. She wished she could help. But after staying here three days longer than anticipated, there was barely enough food to nurse Loghain and Rylock.

Three days, with only slight improvement. Their predicament had jolted Rilian from her nightmare - forced her into the present. The memories lay in a deep, dark pit, watched over by the guardian statue of Andraste. She had listened to the moans - smelled the taint on their breath - sensed the darkness that filled them. It was terrifying because the darkspawn emissary - the Architect - had long ago used up Ostagar's last remaining supplies of the Joining mixture. In desperation, she and Wynne had used her own tainted blood instead - mixed with a healthy dose of lyrium.

Back inside the tent, she re-examined them. They did not feel like Wardens to her - nor like tainted humans. Colour was better, pulses stronger, breathing was improved - slow and regular. Bending close, Rilian sniffed at each neck, then smelled the breath. The skin was fresh - the exhalations free of the slimy cloudiness of taint. The smallest smile quirked her lips: both could use a good tooth-brushing, but at least they smelled human again.

A while later, Loghain stirred as she spooned broth into him - thinking of all the times she had done this for her mother, during the last days. She was wiping his chin when his eyes flew open. They were bright, clear. Startled, she rocked back on her heels, exclaiming aloud, nearly dropping the precious broth. He continued to look directly into her eyes: the hawk's stare still commanding. His first words came with difficulty:

"You all right? Not sick, like us? My men? Rylock - she all right? Her hands?" He tried to gesture. After three days of immobility, muscle was flaccid, coordination difficult.

"Wynne and I are alright. We lost four Night Elves: Pir Surana, Murl, Aris and Clayden. Rylock's hands are healing - Wynne fixed the bones." She described his journey to get help, Rylock in his arms - glossing over how he'd slumped to the ground as soon as she saw him.

Loghain looked toward the tent flap - then back to Rilian and Wynne. "How soon can Rylock travel?"

"Get well first." Rilian stifled his argument with a spoonful of broth. After swallowing, Loghain said: "We have to get away from here."

"We'll see." Exasperated yet pleased by his aggressive approach to recovery, Rilian wished she could distract him. Ravenous provided the answer. Ecstatic at the sound of Loghain's voice, his barking demanded attention. Rilian opened the tent flap and let him in. He nearly trampled Loghain, pushing his muzzle into his face, tongue flicking like a red, wet towel. Too weak to fend him off, delighted to see him, Loghain protested and flailed as best he could. Satisfied at last, Ravenous obeyed Rilian's command to go back outside. Rilian giggled at his contented air. Ravenous looked at her, wagged his short stub of a tail one last time.

By the time she looked back, Loghain had pushed himself up, bare chest lit by the flickering glow of their single candle.

"You making some sort of rally?"

"What do you mean: rally?" he barked, "I was just coasting - letting you do some work for a change."

Rilian laughed - suddenly filled with exultation. "We did it! Loghain - do you see what this means? You and Rylock - you both had Blight-sickness: now you're cured! I wonder what it is about your blood that's different now? It must be the same kind of thing as with my cousin: Shianni couldn't catch the Tevinter plague because she'd had marshfever! You were exposed to the Deep Roads before - with Maric - so you had resistance. And Rylock…Rylock had just taken a shed-load of lyrium! No wonder we put it in the Joining mixture: it must help the body fight infection!" She paused for breath. "Loghain - I need to take a sample of your blood!"

"You want our blood?" That was Rylock's voice - stern despite its weakness. Rilian turned to her, delighted. "You're back! Oh - this is wonderful!"

"Blood Magic?" Rylock was not to be dissuaded.

"Not magic. Medicine." Rilian said firmly, "The study of immunity to taint. It's called immune…immuney…immunology!" she finished triumphantly, "A respected profession among Wardens."

"The Wardens have no such profession," Rylock said flatly, "And you just made that word up."

"Aha!" Rilian countered smugly, "But I am the Warden-Commander of Ferelden. In fact, since the Wardens of Montsimmard and Weisshaupt have been useless, I'd say I am the _First Warden_. By definition. And the First Warden's Directive is the study of immunology!"

Loghain's grunt of laughter was cut short by Rylock, who said: "Warden - this path is wrong. Dangerous."

"It is a path the emissary - the Architect - is already on!"

Loghain's eyes widened at the name.

"That's right - he told me of your first meeting. And you were there, too, Rylock - at Kinloch Hold. And you, Wynne. You three of all people should know what a danger he is."

Rilian had never wanted to go back there - resented the conversation for making it necessary. Her voice was harsh with suppressed grief as she told them of Duncan, Boann - the creation of the Children. By the time she had finished, the silence in the tent was greyer than fog - and far colder. She had a glimpse of Rylock's face as she'd never seen it: pale, shocked, in agonizing pain. A moment later she pulled the frozen mask back in place: a storm behind a glacier.

Rilian thought, oddly, of an old Alienage horror story - about an evil shem lord whose sins showed only in his portrait. Was it the portrait's fault he was hideous and damned? No - it was the fault of the Man. Could she blame the Architect for trying to salvage some scrap of meaning from the existence he had been cursed with - to try to forge a future for his kind in the only way open to them? _No - I cannot blame him…but I hate him nonetheless. I hate him for what he did to Boann and Duncan. I want him to know, before I kill him, that his goals are futile. I want his dreams to shrivel in his head. Nothing compares with the cruelty of seeing ones hopes for ones people trampled into filth. I want him to know the tree is dead; its fruit rotten. Maker forgive me._

Rylock was the first to speak. "Warden: this…creature and all his works must be eliminated. I know this. But the solution we need is military. I will take that letter - that shameful proof of the Grand Cleric's refusal to send men to Ostagar - to the Divine. I will speak of the fate of the Revered Mother of Denerim. And I will call for an Exalted March."

That moment saw a charge of excitement. Rilian realized suddenly how long she'd been waiting for something to bring that level of indignation to Rylock's face. Her dark eyes were narrowed, her jaw like a rock set upon another rock. Storm-clouds gathered in the dark eyes, heavying them; within the swirl of repressed rage, sword-point pupils glittered with intensity of purpose.

And even so, straight through the ring of Rylock's words, Rilian forced herself to say: "But even that may not be enough. We cannot let even _one_ of these creatures escape - to breed more nightmares. The Architect told me that First Enchanter Remille had created a magical plague that would spread taint across the land - make all humanity into Wardens. It is the same filthy magic used by the Tevinters in the Alienage - to spread their Elf-only plague. But what if I could make it work _for _us - use it to spread a cure? A cure for us - death to the darkspawn..."

_Well - not I. I know nothing about magic or medicine, and my purpose is still to die against the Archdemon. I will leave this in the hands of another: the one person I know who is skilled in Blood Magic. Jowan. And Ser Otto will be his moral guide._

"My duty is to defeat the Blight - by whatever means necessary," she finished.

"No, Warden," Rylock said softly, "Your duty is to defend mankind from the Blight. There is a difference. Your duty is to stand against the onslaught of the darkspawn - time and again. It is not for you to gamble with the lives of those in your care. It is not for you to play at being a god."

_Templars and Wardens: so different yet so similar. The Architect told me the Wardens were first formed to fight Tevinter Blood Magic. I wonder: do the Orders come from the same roots? Did somebody, long long ago, have this same argument? Are the Templars the ones who believed as Rylock does - and refused to be part of such dangerous experiments?_

_It's like the Alienage story: about the girl and the box. Only - there is always hope. And the fact that science can be used for evil doesn't mean it can't also heal._

"Yes," Rilian said softly, "The Wardens have always maintained the balance: a Blight comes, and we fight it back. Time and again. No-one wins. What if it were possible to do more than that - upset the balance. Should we not try? Wynne: aren't you playing god every time you heal someone? If you refused to interfere, for fear of succumbing to demons, wouldn't you be as bad as someone who watches a man drown and does nothing to help?"

Wynne nodded slowly.

"If I am playing at being a god, isn't it because I am made in the image of one? How can it be wrong to try to put right what the Elves of Arlathan did wrong, millennia ago?"

"It won't corrupt you?"

"Certainly not. That offends me."

"I mean to. I want you to think about what you're doing. I'm your friend. That's why I'm telling you you're walking on the most dangerous ground a person can test. This power wasn't enough to save the Elves - nor the original Wardens. Do you honestly believe it can't corrupt you? Do you have the strength to reject it if there's a danger it should fall into the wrong hands?"

Twisting away, Rilian rose awkwardly to her feet. She stumbled out of the tent, into the cold light of morning. Ignoring Ravenous' greeting, she took several quick strides away, unable to will the stiffness from her back, the fury from her stride. She was giving her life - her _soul _- to defeat the Archdemon. Who was this Templar to doubt her?

Who was Rylock to examine the dark doubts that only she should know about?

Who was Rylock to make her cry?

She heard the sound of the tent flap - assumed it was Wynne. The steps were slow and faltering. She recognized the burned, battered hand that caught her shoulder - pulled free with a lunge that destroyed her balance. Stumbling clumsily, she rounded on Rylock.

Rylock should not be on her feet at all, she thought: the Templar looked pale, unsteady, with only Wynne's borrowed cloak to keep out the cold. The sadness in her quiet features stilled Rilian's harsh words. Rylock's dark eyes were bright with sombre conviction and bleak pride: the eyes of someone who did not expect to be understood or pardoned, but who would not recant. Rylock said: "You understand the darkspawn, and I cannot. I, on the other hand, can understand the perils of power. I have seen a Knight Commander seduced by the idea that only she could save a city. The things she really wanted and loved slipped through her fingers and she ended up clinging to the power because it was all she had left. I don't want to lose a friend again. Would you understand if I told you I don't fear the deaths of my friends so much as I fear losing them? Death is only the path to the Maker. But to _fall_…does that make sense?"

Rilian wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Impulsively, she reached to touch Rylock's cheek. "You're a troublesome Templar," she said, then smiled crookedly, "I think "troublesome" and "Templar" in the same sentence might be one word more than necessary."

They smiled at each other, seeking ever firmer ground in the moral maze between them.

Rilian went on: "Don't worry about the blood. I understand. I like you for that. For everything. Because you're who you are."

Rylock's dark eyes shone with a gratitude not quite aware of itself. She nodded briefly, then turned, heading for the nearby pool, anxious to pray.

Rilian turned at the sound of Loghain's voice. He was propped on one elbow, staring out of the tent. "So Warden - I take it you wish _me_ to donate body and blood to your crazy research?"

Rilian smirked. "Just your blood. You can keep your body."

"Humph."

Loghain allowed her to attach one of the glass syringes she'd taken from Flemeth's hut to his arm. With Wynne's help, she drew a sample of his blood into a small glass tube once used to contain lyrium. Memories of the Architect crowded around her: she furiously blinked them back. When she was done, Loghain sank back, casually.

"And now," he said, "I'm well enough to want some privacy. Out - both of you."

Rilian and Wynne exchanged a glance. "Our pleasure, believe me," Rilian said - delighted at this unexpected chance for revenge that had fallen into her lap like a gift from the Maker, "We'll be outside - where there's _interesting_ stuff to look at!"

Sometime later, Rilian sat staring down into the small pool. Dark memories, Rylock's warnings, and her own plans whirled frenetically through her mind.

The first drop of rain slipped softly into the water. Then another…and another…little ripples spreading outward, disturbing the smooth reflections.

_We who live in this world do not have time to stand and stare at reflections. We do not notice them tremble. What is one more drop in so much water. Only when the drops begin to tumble fast and furiously do we see the rain falling through the air, feel it pricking our skin and wetting our clothes, but by then it is too late to seek shelter. Is that how the fall of Tevinter began - with a single Tear of Andraste falling unnoticed? If I had seen that first drop fall could I have understood the danger? Could I have prevented a whole civilization from crashing down around me?_

The waters gave no answer.

* * *

Four hours later, Loghain's party returned to the ruins for one last time before leaving. They would return with the army: the Warden would have enough men to remove the makeshift barriers they'd put in place, descend into the tunnels and destroy the Architect and his creations. With any luck, the tunnels would lead on to the main Deep Roads, and the Archdemon would be next. While Loghain's army and that of the Bastard Prince would trap the approaching horde between them; break them upon the rock of Ostagar.

They headed for the main bridge, dragging their dead - Murl and Clayden - on wooden pallets. Pir Surana and Aris had died of the Architect's corruption, and nothing at all remained. They returned to Cailan's bloated corpse, to finish what Wynne and Rylock had started. On the way, he thought he saw the Warden pick up something from the ruins - caught a glint like a sickle moon - hesitate a moment, then place it carefully out of sight. Something belonging to Duncan? That would explain her reluctance to have him see it. He had thought for a moment it was a blade - but hiding that would make no sense: they needed all the weapons they could get. She seemed irreversibly aged since her capture: her skin held the greenish pallor of a corpse, and her hard-shut lips seemed to show beneath them the rigid grin of the skull. Together, Loghain, Rylock, Wynne and the Warden carried Cailan to the pyre and laid him beside the Night Elf dead. Although Loghain had assumed no fire would burn in such a Blight-infested place he was proven wrong: Cailan was burned like the Kings of old, a trace of the glory he had yearned for in the meaningless ritual.

Suddenly - before he could stop her - the Warden brought out two of the letters they had found and threw them on the pyre. The parchment crisped and curled instantly, shrivelling in the heat. The air before the pyre wavered and hissed. He was outraged - at her, for the staggering insolence, and at himself, for not having checked his belongings! He rounded on her; she met his gaze fearlessly. What had happened to her had put her beyond fear.

"I kept the letter concerning the Chantry," she said flatly, "Rylock will need that to call for an Exalted March. I saw no reason to keep documents damning Arl Eamon and the Couslands - or tainting Cailan's memory."

"The Couslands were traitors: keeping their ports open so the chevaliers could land - enforce this Maker-damned union!"

"Perhaps. But that is past. Supporting a marriage does not mean they would support an invasion. Why should I stand back and sign the death warrant of a man who has done me no harm - who, so my fiancé told me, remained behind allowing his Elven servants to escape! Maker knows they never had such treatment from you! What do I care for the politics of the Landsmeet: for whether your nationalism is better than Cousland's internationalism? I agree an Orlesian invasion would be a disaster - but so would giving the entire North to a man like Nathaniel Howe. If any nobles get too powerful, history is only going to repeat itself."

"I thought you'd given up meddling in politics," he remarked sourly.

"Oh, I'm not - _meddling_," she retorted, "I'm just - restoring the status quo! Keeping your mind focused on fighting the Blight instead of ruining Channon Cousland. Nor am I betraying my promise to Anora. You thought she made Valendrian a Bann in return for my political support - and the murder of Rendon Howe. Not so. She would have had my support anyway - and as for Valendrian, that was in return for promising to keep you safe, should the Landsmeet call for your execution. I was going to put you through the Joining."

Loghain absorbed that in silence.

"Oh," the Warden added, "I can't say I was sorry to chop Howe up into little pieces and feed him to Ravenous - have you seen how hungry he gets? But I did that on my own."

Loghain did not let on that he had guessed already what had really happened. He supposed he should be grateful she didn't hate him for that - for his ridiculous trust of Howe that had seen her violated. It was also possible she was protecting the little Elven maid, Erlina. There had to be someone who had passed those messages. He would have suspected the red-haired bard - but he had been reliably informed that Leliana had not left Lothering in two years. Unless there was a third agent - hiding in Denerim, perhaps?

He had been a Ferelden farmer once - he could see that too much consolidation of power was bad for the small man. He had thought himself the exception to the rule - but even he had to admit he'd failed spectacularly. Still, it was one thing to have robust debate during peace-time; quite another with Orlais growling like a wolf at the border. Still, Bann Sighard and Arl Bryland had put aside their differences with him, and the Warden was right - supporting a marriage did not mean Cousland would support an invasion. Knowing Anora, she would find a way to play Channon Cousland and Nathaniel Howe off as suitors, keeping their allegiance with promises while remaining Queen alone.

He looked at the Warden without rancour: like Rylock and Wynne, a political enemy - but a personal friend.

"Joining the Wardens - serving under that damned Orlesian - now that really would be a cup of poison!"

She smirked. "Well - I never promised Anora I'd give you an easy time!"

Thoughtfully, Loghain said: "I assume that since both Rylock and I recovered from Blight disease, we would survive it. I know both she and I would choose this fate in order to save Ferelden."

The Warden shook her head. A little wistfully, she replied, "No. I have someone else in mind to carry on my legacy - my research. I need you and Rylock where you are: leading Ferelden's army and the Templars. Besides, not even Guillaume Caron will call for your execution now - not when I explain about the Architect and the Children. Not even the First Warden will play waiting games: this has gone beyond the fate of one small backwater. Rylock will gather the Templars. Riordan will gather the Wardens. Together, there will be a reckoning."

The fire burned hotter, and a gout of sparks shivered into the leaden sky. Loghain watched two of his men - the boy he had loved - burn. It astonished him that the Warden had cared enough about Cailan's reputation - about Anora's feelings - to hide that part of the truth. She was still young enough to seek some illusions about the world, cover its ugliness with imagination and the ideal of a King who died true to his wife and country. For all her pragmatism - for all that an Alienage Elf couldn't really entertain notions that the world was a safe or just place - she had the tendency to recast life as it should be, while he dealt in facts. It was the same as her ridiculous versions of Howe's death, he supposed - and for all his avowed disgust at her tall tales he would never let on that he knew the truth, and spoil the stories. Still, she wasn't just a bard - did not merely try to escape reality. Like Gareth Mac Tir, she tried to remake the world to fit her ideals. Ideals built on a foundation of violence and loss.

He let her recite the words of the Chant:

…_Here lies the Abyss, the well of all souls, from whose emerald waters doth life begin anew. Come to me, my child, and I shall embrace you. In my arms lies eternity…_

The Warden expressed a fierce satisfaction that the flames were rising high - that the sight would not be hidden in the ground. As they turned away, he could have sworn she shook a fist at the opaque, uncaring sky. Such anger seemed a waste of time to him - according to the Chantry, the Maker had long abandoned the world. He believed the god had not done so on a whim - knowing the essential nature of mankind, he had seen that they deserved it.

As they moved out, Loghain glanced around at his group: Rylock, her face pale and drawn from the after-effects of Blight-sickness (he supposed his own wasn't in much better shape) - Wynne, ashen and haunted by the fate of the woman she had left behind - his Night Elves, grim and stoic after the loss of four of their number. Alim Surana looked like he couldn't quite believe his fearsome father could have succumbed to death - the young man was comforted by Tia, standing very close. The Warden: the white bandage on her jaw contrasting starkly with her vibrant hair. Suddenly her face was drained and drawn; her cheeks seemed to sink in even as he looked. He'd seen the same after battle, when men's wounds got cold. _This needs the same remedy…_

"I have a bottle in my tent," he told the company, "No Antivan brandy this time. Just good Ferelden malt whisky from north of Highever. Far better for us."

The Warden's lips twisted in a tight grin. "So. It isn't religion, then - your way of coping."

"I can't say religion was ever a comfort to me."

"Neither can I - not after…Never mind."

He stopped, turned to look for the last time at the pyre, the ashes of a failed trust.

_Only because I loved you, my friend. A man who hated you could never hurt you as I have…_

He let his view rise from the tainted monolith of Ostagar to the Blighted fields around: once fertile farmland - the heart of the southern Bannorn. _My country_, he thought, an echo of the Warden's words ringing in his mind, _my land. Savaged, wounded, crushed to her knees and changed beyond recognition, but my country still. Neither of us can ever be the same - but I can be wiser than I was. I can love you better if not more_. "You must rise."

The Warden looked at him curiously. "Still sick? What's that noise?"

"Nothing to you. Keep moving."

"I may kill you myself. I can defeat the Archdemon alone."

"You can't do either. Shut up. Take point."

In another moment, the lowering clouds broke, drenching the land in a cold, blinding torrent.

* * *

_Song inspirations were:_

_Ostagar: Return To West Harbor, from Neverwinter Nights 2_

_Rilian's Capture: Sia – I'm In Here_

_Rilian And The Architect: Mazzy Star – Into Dust_

_The Taint: Florence and the Machine - Drumming Song_

_Cailan's Funeral: Daniel Lanois - Ice_

_AN: It seems logical to me that, since the darkspawn never reached Denerim in DATM, the Architect would not have founded his base in Amaranthine. As he is after Grey Warden blood, what better place to find it than Ostagar? I always wondered who The Mother might have been - and whether The First was once a Warden._

_I must thank Shakespira for the idea concerning the creation of darkspawn as a means to resist Tevinter Blood Magic - it's from her brilliant "The Lion's Den" - and both Shakespira and icey cold for the use of lyrium as a boost to the immune system and the possibility of natural immunity to taint - those ideas are explored in our shared fic: "The Grey Tales". The theories of the Children being larval Broodmothers, Templars being break-away Grey Wardens and the Elves of Arlathan becoming the original demons of the Fade are (so far as I know!) unique to DATM – although the latter is very much inspired by Corypheus' words in Legacy._

_A shout-out goes to Tyanilth for "good Ferelden malt whisky from North of Highever". See Chapter Six of "The Teyrn's Revenge". Have one on me :)_

_A shout-out also goes to Arsinoe: Rilian's suggestion, early in the chapter, of using The Rock near Gherlen's Pass to await the darkspawn was planted in my head after reading about the fortress in Victory at Ostagar. I'm actually not sure if it exists in canon or not. If not, I hope you don't mind me using it! Its existence is now irreversibly stuck in my mind..._

_The chapter title is from "Children of the Dust", by Louise Lawrence: a story that has stuck with me for more than twenty-five years and inspired the themes of evolution and extinction in Rilian's meeting with the Architect. There's a lot of "The Pit And The Pendulum", "Frankenstein" and "The Picture Of Dorian Grey" in there too..._

_The question of whether Wardens are protected from becoming Broodmothers by the taint is an interesting one. I believe yes: else surely not even Weisshaupt would be so foolish as to send women Wardens to the Deep Roads. Which means that the Architect's original plan in The __Calling would have resulted in the sterility of both species. Hence my theory on his creation of the Children as proto-Broodmothers. The Architect, IMO, is not "evil" as such - but so alien that he would see nothing wrong with this. Never having known what it is to be untainted, he would have no idea what is being destroyed._

_As to Rylock's Exalted March versus Rilian's medical arms-race: I would probably side with Rylock. But Rilian is the kind of visionary who will either save the world or damn it. Nor have I forgotten Avernus' research: at this stage in the story, there wasn't the opportunity to send them all the way to the North - but there is always the sequel!_

_Finally: I would like to get in a plug for a story I am very proud to Beta. It's been a long time, but the next chapter of Dragonracer's "The Hand We're Dealt" will be up shortly. Read it - it's wonderful!_

_**Next up: Chapter Twenty-One - All Flesh Is Grass, in which the armies muster at Ostagar, Morrigan makes her offer, and (finally!) we catch up with what Alistair's been doing (I haven't forgotten him!)**_

_**Thank you to everyone still following this story. Your reviews and PMs make my day!**_


	21. Chapter 21: All Flesh Is Grass

_Because all flesh is grass and all its beauty as the blossom of the field; the grass withers and the blossom fades._

1 Peter 1:24

Fat, heavy droplets of brightly glinting rain splashed in silver streams into the reddish earth. They soaked the grey stone of Castle Redcliffe, turning its red-and-green pennants into sodden sails. Alistair breathed deeply, enjoying the mingled scents of rain and earth and growth. As always before a battle, his Warden senses had sharpened to a brilliant awareness of the life he might soon be leaving.

The rusted iron drawbridge gleamed like a rack of red-tinged spears. He stepped through, into the torch-lit shadows and quiet old stone of the keep. So much quieter than the last time he and Rilian had done this…

_...wraiths turned the air into a mass of swirling rags. Ravenous yipped as the mabari poked his head through the old mill tunnel, emerging into chaos. Ril was right behind, her mother's dagger and Greensteel leading, scurrying behind them and going for eyeless sockets while Alistair readied his Smite._

_"Don't look straight at 'em - they've got you that way!" he shouted. His Templar training told him wraiths fed off the fears and sorrows of man; bled thoughts and will away until all resistance seemed futile. Rilian obeyed, trusting him without question…_

_They had come straight from the carnage in the Circle Tower. Knight Commander Greagoir and First Enchanter Irving were leading the surviving mages and Templars. The Tower itself was nothing but a spirit-haunted ruin; the Veil irrevocably torn. Knight-Commander Rylock - who scared Alistair a little - was leading her men: the bringers of the Right of Annulment, sent from Denerim. Except the Right had been aborted at the last minute: after Ril had convinced Rylock to stand down. While Greagoir and Irving were arguing like old men at a beer drink about allowing the mages to aid the Wardens, Rilian had focused on Rylock's sense of duty:_

_"The darkspawn are enemies created by the foulest of Blood Magic and spawned from the Black City. They've already taken Mother Boann at Ostagar and Knight Commander Bryant at Lothering. _There's_ your duty, Knight Commander."_

_Rylock had made her decision with the speed of a soldier - alternatives snipped away, pared down to absolutes - and the faith that flared like light beneath her taut face and tough keen eyes._ _"When you have mustered your armies, send word to Denerim. I will be there."…_

Redcliffe had been meant to be a rallying point for the Wardens' armies and a stopover for Rylock's men. Instead they had walked into a witch's cauldron of trouble. Undead, abominations, shades and revenants, descending on the village. The Arlessa had blamed Jowan. While the armies of Templars and mages held off the assault, Alistair, Ril, Ravenous and Morrigan had gone straight through the castle's hidden entrance, to cut the problem off at the root.

And found the root wasn't Jowan at all, but Cailan's own nephew, Connor. Alistair would forever be grateful for what Rilian had done. She'd gone out of her way to help Arl Eamon and his family - the only family Alistair had, though they didn't want him. They'd both known Connor would be granted no mercy by Rylock or Greagoir. Mages who failed their Harrowing and became possessed were given no second chances: they would not have let him live. But Rilian had _known_ that Knight Commander Harith had a stash of lyrium put by because she had supplied it.

"Grey Warden confiscation," she had told him gleefully - knowing he could not admit his five-vial-a-day habit, nor his dealings with the Mage's Collective. Morrigan had used the lyrium to power a trip to the Fade - and Jowan had entered it, saving Connor's soul.

Alistair didn't much like Blood Mages: but he owed Jowan more than he could repay for taking the blame for everything that had happened. The truth would not have saved him - it would only have damned Connor as well as himself. Jowan had protected Connor - and right before he was due to be handed over had mysteriously escaped. Rilian swore blind her lock-picking skills had not been involved - but Alistair knew better. The only other person who knew the truth was Ser Otto. Alistair knew the Templar who had been his mentor since childhood would not betray the secret. Ser Otto believed in redemption - even for Blood Mages.

He headed inside the castle, to the main hall, finding himself comparing the differences between then and now. Gone were the blackened corpses, the overturned tables, the blood and the ichor. The hideous Orlesian furniture and tapestries remained. Alistair found himself standing under one he knew all too well. It depicted a passage from the Chant of Light that declared: "And down they fell into darkness and despair". The tapestry was dark, fat with rolling boils of smoke and the angular char of burned trees and buildings. Here and there, sharp yellow teeth of flames scavenged what was left.

Alistair disliked the quotation. He disliked the tapestry, though he had never confessed it to the Arl. A beating was the least he could have expected for such impertinence.

The furniture arrangement in the great hall was the same, with a short table against one wall, where the Arl has sat at the centre. Two longer tables ranged down the flanking walls. Large fireplaces, set into the walls, backed up each table. That illumination was augmented by a square chandelier holding three tiers of candles, as well as smaller candelabra on the tables. The windows were arrow-slits, allowing hotter air an escape near the ceiling. In spite of that ventilation, there was smoke in the air, and the light created by the flames had a roseate, muted glow.

Alistair liked it. It gave the warmth of the enormous chamber a cosy element that suggested snugness. Now that mage and mundane children ate alongside each other - staying at Redcliffe Castle until the Tower was cleansed or a replacement found - it had a rather family-like atmosphere. Expressions and animation were undisguised, colours were unsullied. Alistair had an impression of softness, of a space without edges.

The expressions of the five men who awaited him were not soft, however, but granite-hard. Riordan's features were grave, shadowed. The Orlesian Warden had been with them since leaving Rilian's camp at the Hafter River, and had become for Alistair a mentor and friend. Teagan's handsome, youthful face was a shade paler than usual. Greagoir looked older and greyer since the events at Kinloch Hold - he'd never been exactly fun-loving; now he was more dour than ever. Irving's bristly grey beard grew all over his face like fungus: he hadn't trimmed it in weeks. And Teyrn Fergus Cousland - a survivor of both the Highever and Ostagar massacres- looked nearly as barbaric as his Chasind army.

Riordan did not waste time with formalities.

"The darkspawn that attacked Redcliffe were relatively few in number, I'm afraid. I was wrong in my assessment: they are headed north-east. Teyrn Loghain and Warden-Commander Tabris have won a mighty victory against the darkspawn at the Drakon River - but thirty thousand are massed south of Lake Calenhad. We must attack from the rear, drive them east - along the path of the Frostback River so they cannot escape to the Wilds - towards Ostagar. The Teyrn plans a double-envelopment in which the darkspawn are trapped between Ostagar, the river, and us."

Alistair frowned. The only thing worse than being forced to ally with the murdering bastard Loghain was seeing him proved right. If they had listened to Riordan and Arl Eamon, the horde would be devastating Denerim by now.

"Are you sure?" he asked eagerly, "Is Ril - I mean, the Warden Commander: are you sure she's alright?"

"I ventured close enough to "listen in" as it were. The Warden Commander defeated one of the two Generals leading the horde. Their army will now retake Ostagar. But the second General is more powerful still: an emissary."

"And what about the Archdemon?"

"Unknown. It is my hope that, with half the horde slain, the creature's rise to the surface will be delayed. Attrition may mean the Archdemon won't even manifest - it's obviously waiting for a critical threshold."

"If not, then Maker preserve us," Teagan breathed.

"The Chasind travel light and fast," Fergus injected, "We can march tomorrow."

Greagoir and Irving traded a glance - as if daring the other to back out. Sometimes they reminded Alistair of nothing so much as an old married couple.

Teagan was frowning, concerned. "What news of my brother?"

"Unknown. You must take command of the remaining Redcliffe force. There can be no more delays."

Alistair breathed deeply, enjoying the blood-rush through his body, the life roaring through his veins. "Then let's do it. Let's go to war."

The meeting broke up, each moving to rally his own men. Neither Alistair nor Riordan had a specific command: they would fight or advise as they saw fit. As he headed up to his room - his old room, that still bore echoes of the boy he had been, before the Arlessa had exiled him to the stables, he was surprised to see Isolde seek him out. Her fine-boned, exhausted face was unsure, hesitant. Her voice - which Alistair had once compared to the wails of demons in the Black City - was softer than usual, its shrill Orlesian accent muted.

"Alistair," she began, a little hesitantly, "I have not always been nice to you."

She spoke as if imparting a great secret. Alistair waited, nonplussed.

"But you and Rilian Tabris have saved my Connor. Because of you he has his mind back. He will never be…what Eamon and I hoped. But he will grow up."

In a clumsy attempt at comfort, Alistair said: "The Circle's not so bad…well, it won't be, once they've got rid of the abominations and everything. I'm sure he'll fit in just fine."

"Now that the mages are forced to stay here for a time…he seems happier. Already mage children and the children of the castle are mixing. Mother Hannah and I…we have been talking about that. She thinks they should never go back to the Tower. She tells me Warden Rilian found the Sacred Ashes in a mountain fortress above a village called Haven. She believes that's where the mages should rebuild the Circle. The Templars would still be their guardians, of course - but it would be more…more like a community. And I could visit."

Alistair turned that over. "I think that's a great idea," he agreed enthusiastically, "Do you think old Greagoir will allow it?"

"You should speak of your former commander with more respect, Alistair," she chided him - but her voice had still not returned to its former incarnation. "I do not know. It is not really for him to decide, but the Grand Cleric."

"Grand Cleric Leanna is an old - an old woman," Alistair amended hastily, "She doesn't like change. She thinks it's all mad, and bad, and the work of maleficarum. But maybe Sister Leliana could do something. She and Ril are famous now: the finders of the Ashes."

"Because of them - and you - my husband and son live. I will not forget. I will pray for Eamon tomorrow - and for you too."

* * *

The Frostback River curved like a bright blade, all the way from Lake Calenhad to the foot of the Frostback mountain range to the Hinterlands. The morning sky was hot and clear. Dauntless shivered under Alistair's soothing hands. The warhorse had been his ever since caring for him in the Templar Order. A pale Orlesian destrier, fifteen hands high. Alistair's childhood in the stables and his Templar training had made him a superb rider. Teagan had told him he resembled King Maric in every way but this. He had even taught Rilian. It had been Fergus' idea to give a white horse to Riordan too, and to each of their messengers. Everyone knew they carried important information, and cleared the way.

Fergus caught Alistair's gaze. Across the intervening distance, he saluted, raising and lowering his blade. Alistair mirrored him.

Before the afternoon shadows lengthened, one or both of them might be dead. The idea touched Alistair with a sad excitement. He wondered about Fergus. The loss of the Highever Teyrn's whole family was a thing Alistair's mind shrank from imagining. For himself, he didn't want to die. He didn't expect to. That brought a smile of self-mockery: not many men did. The human mind was capable of infinite dissembling. Every warrior who saw his friends killed accepted their deaths as proof of their bad luck or mistakes. It also confirmed his own immortality.

That was why Riordan's news had been a body-blow. He still saw, as if it had been yesterday, Riordan's sad, grave face as he joined Alistair at the Hafter River…

…_"You are new to the Order and you may not have been told how an Archdemon is slain. I need to know if this is so."_

_"It is. Duncan didn't have time. Loghain - that bastard…" He choked the words off; the memory of betrayal - at Ostagar, at the Landsmeet - still raw.. How could Rilian have sided with that monster!_

_"I…see. I had simply assumed…no matter. I'll give you the truth, then."…_

Alistair thought of immortality - of the woman he still loved, despite never really having known her - and of Riordan's truth. Then he shut his thoughts off with a click. He couldn't bear to follow that road to its conclusion. Didn't want to remember what had followed.

He shook the thoughts off the way a dog shakes off water, glancing around at the glittering dark mass of riders, infantry and supply wagons that followed. Those in the distance looked like an enormous single organism, many-eyed, many-minded, moving with a slow, ponderous crawl towards the inevitable reckoning. They boasted a higher percentage of horseman than Rilian's arm of the campaign. Teagan was the inheritor of his sister's cavalry. Small, fleet Ferelden warhorses and skilled riders formed a fast, mobile unit. Teagan had explained to him how, during the rebellion, Rowan had pioneered the principle of lightning manoeuvre: strike and retreat, wheel and strike again. As swiftly as one unit would attack, they would retreat. Enemies that gave chase found themselves gored from a different direction by a different unit. The Templars were cavalry too, but the iron-shelled men and huge, heavily caparisoned Orlesian destriers were a fist rather than a fleet spike. When Templars clambered aboard a horse, it was to ride over someone, not around him. Alistair caught sight of Knight Commander Harith. His narrow pale face was a shade whiter than usual; his black hair slicked back in a ponytail. Eyes so pale they seemed to reflect the colours around them were strained. The confiscation of his lyrium stash and the logistical nightmare of housing the extra Templars and mages that had come to Redcliffe had aged him by a decade. Beside him, the good-natured, goofy young odd-ball Carroll was twitchy as a cat on a hot roof.

"This new clarity is so strange, man," he had confided, "Everything looks super-sharp - and bright - I wonder if the mages think so too."

The mages were not having an easy time of it - most never having sat a horse in their lives. Only the Senior Enchanters - Irving, Sweeney, Ines, Leorah and Karl - were allowed the comfort of a wagon. Sweeney and Ines sat sunning themselves, staring out at the heaving, sweating mass of Templars with identical beaming smiles. One of the bolder and more ill-natured Templars had complained. Irving's reply had been diplomatic, his gravelly whine soothing - but Sweeney had interrupted him and snapped, "When you get to my age, young man, you'll have earned the same. We Enchanters are worth a dozen Templars in battle - be thankful we don't eat a dozen times the food!"

Perhaps the most fearsome sight were the Chasind, led by Fergus. They rode the horses they caught loose in the Ferelden hills and valleys: small, sturdy creatures with iron nerves. The Chasind were unorthodox believers: merging Chantry doctrine with their own traditions. One example was their war-paint. A Chasind warrior believed he entered the Fade as he left this world. They painted their faces in anticipation of death, believing that a warrior fought his way from the Fade to the Maker's side. Or, conversely, was killed again, and became a wandering spirit, destined to haunt the world of men.

The design was a stark white death's head, the eyes black holes. The mouth was painted red: a gaping, toothed maw with red streaks at the corners. Alistair thought of the old Alamarri wars - of Conobar and Flemeth - thought how chilling it must have been to discover that face at arm's length, black eyes inflamed with combat madness.

Fergus, leading them, looked scarcely less wild. A broad bear of a man, scarred from where the darkspawn in the Wilds had sliced open his face from left cheekbone to jaw. Grey-blue eyes combined a man's courage with an animal's ferocity. He was here, he had said, because a Cousland always did his duty first. Alistair did not envy the Howe brothers when he caught up with them afterward. The Chasind who had saved him were already fearsome warriors, skilled in individual combat. Fergus had taught them how to support each other, how to manoeuvre by unit, small unit control, and effective communications. Iron discipline, imposed on men who'd fought since childhood, created a fearsome shock team.

War-drums were part of their communications. Each drum roared individually, in sequence. The eastern drum always sounded first; the rotation went north around the perimeter, ending at the starter. Alistair watched the one nearest to him, a short distance to his left. Mounted on a cart, it was a man's reach across and half again as deep. Suspended by leather straps, it was a uniform tube of vertical wooden slats glued together and bound with braided leather. The leather striking surface was hauled tight by an intricate web of lines. Waxed and polished to the colour of honey, the instrument rode perhaps five feet off the ground. The drummer perched on the cart, armed with unpadded sticks. When it was his turn to pound, the drummer struck as hard and fast as he could. When he stopped, the next one rolled. They created a flat, visceral pulse that brought to mind the Song: the black tendrils of the darkspawn hive mind that always flickered at the edges of Alistair's consciousness.

Their thunder circled through the valley. Thick, ominous silence followed the last solo. As soon as the eastern drum set the new rhythm, all joined.

The thirty thousand darkspawn they followed were a seething mass that had stripped the land beyond like a plague of locusts. They stretched all the way from the Hinterlands near Ostagar back to an old Tevinter fort barely a mile ahead. Riordan, scouting, had been surprised to find the rearguard holed up here: it was unusual for darkspawn to have any grasp of strategy. They were led by a Genlock emissary - beyond that, he was uncertain.

Fergus, Teagan and Alistair would be first into the fort. He saw Fergus raise the pre-assault flag.

The flags were also Fergus' idea. Fergus had argued with the tribal elders - a mage and warrior - over adopting the system, Alistair had been amused to see how their obstinate resistance to change reminded him of Greagoir and Irving.

Fergus galloped up, war paint spangled by pearls of sweat. His mabari war hound watched its master closely for signals. Chasind horses shuffled and snorted. Many men had swords out, swinging them, loosening muscles. Teagan was calmer - the knights of Redcliffe, including some who had survived the quest for the Ashes, were quiet, focused.

Behind the shock team, a line of mages led by Irving and Sweeney fired over the heads of their allies, pounding at the wall of the fort. Among them was a young man named Anders. Alistair thought Anders reminded him of someone, though he could not have said whom. He had overhead Anders joking with Karl about "fragging" the Templars in front of them. Alistair was not sure what that meant, but it didn't sound good. He was slightly worried to see him in the line behind him.

The fir trees around the fort were burning, lit by magic. A Stonefist had smashed a breach into the wall itself. Seeing it, a thin, hungry smile split Fergus' face. Too small to allow a charge, the gap was widening all the time as the mages pounded away. Alistair sent a runner back to tell Riordan of the breach.

Soon afterward, another white horse rider was sent forward, confirming the mages and Templars were ready. The pace of the drums quickened. Alistair, Fergus and Teagan looked at the fort, where the smoke and flame boiled fiercely.

Then, all at once, a shiver of magic lashed outward. The next thing Alistair knew, the world was aflame around him, white-hot. Air itself lived; sizzled viciously. Heat seared his exposed face, crackled like dry, breaking sticks. A noxious stench scorched his nostrils, sucked the moisture from his throat. Beside him, Teagan hunched over his horse's neck, retching.

Alistair fought to focus, gathered his Templar powers and met the attack with a Cleanse Area. Cool blue beams flooded outward, like water made into light. It washed away the heavy, roiling stink. Around him, he was dimly aware of men gasping, like grains of sand thrown against his concentration.

A second power of lightening; a terror of thunder.

Air flooded his chest. It stank; it tasted of taint. Alistair summoned his powers again. He knew he was unusual in being able to use them without lyrium. He didn't know if that was something to do with being a Warden, or just him, or if all Templars could have done so, given the chance.

One of the carts was engulfed in fire. More dangerous than the flames were stampeding horses. Several broke free of the control of their riders and nearly trampled the mages behind them. Anders was running forward. He cast a powerful Blizzard spell that froze the flames. It also turned the air into knifing cold. Cold like that didn't ache, Alistair discovered, it _burned._

Shifting light, colour and wind imbued the air with an eerie liveliness. Alistair thought of the misshapen ferocities that had poured from the Harrowing Chamber.

Teagan laid a hand on his arm. "Nice work. Look: the flags. The breach is ready."

Standing in the stirrups, Fergus twisted his mount around by main strength, then charged forward. He screamed: a sound that combined a man's voice with the howl of a wolf. A similar sound broke from the throats of the following Chasind. Fergus never slowed. He sped through the fringe of burning trees and arrived at the fort just as the yellow pre-assault flag dropped and the black assault flag whipped up. Repeating his cry, Fergus galloped for the breached wall. His men streamed after him.

Coming through the trees, they looked ragged, no more than three streaming units, much longer than wide. Within a few strides, they were forming into distinct columns, each one four men abreast. The centre one was close-ranked, its head even with the middle of the columns on either side. The men of the flanking columns were spaced much further apart, side to side as well as front to back. The charge looked like a fork with two long, thin lines and one short, fat central one.

Genlock archers already manned the breach. Only twice the height of a tall man, the wall offered no overwhelming tactical advantage. Still, the Genlocks were protected, feral and desperate. Arrow-tips were coated with the poison of their own blood. They loosed: and the doomed victims fell, screaming. Chasind, Redcliffe knights and horses fell, some ridden down by those still coming.

The riders of the Chasind flanking columns were perhaps seventy paces from the defenders when the mounted archers returned fire. The Chasind wielded shortbows with incredible skill from horseback. Only the first rank shot, but they were amazingly quick to get off second and third arrows. With the third, the reason for their spacing became apparent. Each rider wheeled left, retreating parallel to the ranks they'd led moments before. Each row repeated the manoeuvre. A constant stream of arrows rose from the columns, spiking the walls like the bristles of a hedgehog, skimming over them, lodging in darkspawn throats.

The centre column lifted shields as they drove full-gallop at the flaming, smoking hole in the wall.

Alistair rode with them; dismounted inside. Fergus was inside already, facing back against the wall, directing his men. Half drove right, half left. Alistair threw himself into the battle on his left. Fergus held up a red flag, indicating new arrivals should ride past him and push forward. Soon the red was replaced by a black and white pennant. Men pouring through the breach saw that, dismounted, and sought cover. The colour told them they were now the counter-attack force, to hold position until needed.

That need came moments later. Alistair was busy with a trio of Genlocks in ill-fitting Legion armour when the first men from the penetration column started reappearing, forced back by the shrieking, raging horde. Armed with everything from clubs to stolen Ferelden swords, they swarmed over the knights and Chasind. Fergus and Teagan's men cut them down like grass - but there seemed to be two to take the place of every one killed. Sheer pressure forced the attackers in on themselves.

Alistair dropped down on one knee - punched outward with his sword. The strike got the Genlock through the belly - foul ichor oozed forth, coating his blade as the doomed creature shrilled a shriek of agony. Slicing through the dying creature as he turned, Alistair took the sword-arm of the next just at the wrist. The Genlock roared, the sound punctuated by the crack of crushed bone. Alistair rose, bowled the third over with his shield, then finished the creature with a throat stroke.

Step by step, Alistair's section backed until the still-fiery firs singed his clothes. The black and white pennant dropped, replaced by the red. The counter-attack force, rising from various hiding places, hurtled into the flank of the overeager, badly organized darkspawn.

A Genlock arrow struck Alistair's armour, gouging a wicked furrow, then sheared away. The vibrating shaft twanged nasally on its way to dash itself against the stone wall.

Mages and Templars streamed through the gap on the heels of the shock team of Chasind and Redcliffe fighters. A couple of Stonefists smashed the wooden doors of the fort itself to smithereens.

"On me!" Alistair cried, and charged through. Teagan followed him - Fergus was already several paces ahead. They found themselves in an empty, echoing chamber that held the pregnant hush of calm before a storm. Abandoned wooden perches flanked the surprised attackers. Alistair felt a crackle in the air.

"Look out!" he screamed. At once the air darkened, alive with boiling, purple flames, a choking black fog that had its own, terrible consciousness. Shades reared up all around them, their eyes orbs of black floating on beds of dark red.

Screams shrilled around him, echoing and re-echoing. Alistair cleaved the swirling chaos, sword leading. Templar training told him to ignore the shadows and focus on the root of the problem.

The Genlock conjurer stood at the far end of the hall. A head-dress made of human and dwarf finger-bones bristled outward like a crown of thorns. Alistair lashed out with his own powers, backed up by Teagan's men. At once the solid, corrupted form began to melt and crawl and change, slow decay happening in seconds. Soiled robes collapsed inward like a deflating gourd, and from its folds a corrupted cloud of writhing, buzzing insects burst forth. Alistair gaped. He had never seen this magic - Morrigan's magic - performed by a darkspawn before.

"Get back!" he warned, horrified, as the warriors around him were assailed by the plague cloud: insects who spread taint with their stingers the way mosquitoes spread disease. His Holy Smite was the only thing that could touch the abomination - he struck, and struck again, forcing the emissary to shift back to its original form to defend itself.

Alistair cleaved his sword straight ahead, shattering the blue light of several warding glyphs, searing the enchantments into nothingness. Energy coursed into his arm, burning him, but he ignored the pain. His sword became a crackling, living thing as it tore through magical defences, drove through the arm that held the staff, through the creature's jawbone…deep into its skull.

A hand on his shoulder nearly bowled him over. "Good work!" Fergus called, laughing in an excitement that touched on madness. Alistair, Fergus and Teagan led their men forward, individuals transformed into a tempest of destruction.

* * *

Slumped next to his horse, listening to Dauntless' racking breathing, Alistair noted the droplets of darkness congealing at the corners of the world and marvelled that time could have passed so quickly. The fort had fallen. Over it hung the acrid smells of smoke and charred wood, the stink of blood and entrails, taint and grimy sweat. His exhausted gaze went to his sword arm. Black blood completely covered his right side, from ear to heel. Splotches on his left told of cross-strokes to that side.

He remembered nothing.

A murky sense of triumph seethed through inchoate thoughts. There was also foreboding - which made no sense, since the battle was won.

He closed his eyes; was assailed by dots of remembrance. Glint of edged weapons. Low thud of clubs absorbed by armour. The crackle of dark magic. Darkspawn snarling; teeth rending.

A hand on his shoulder brought his eyes open. Teagan - gauntlets protecting him from the tainted blood. His drawn face held the look of years lived in hours, but he smiled.

"Everyone talks of how you fought."

Alistair looked to the south, towards the pale clean lake that budded from the Frostback River. "Let's go wash off the muck."

"You ought to have waited, before you dashed off alone to fight that emissary. I could have killed you for it when we were milling in the hall." Teagan was feeling the reaction - not only to his fears for Alistair, but to all he had seen and done.

Fergus, joining them, said, "I promised you a show today. You outdid me. You outdid everyone."

The army did not camp in the ruined, tainted fort but the valley beyond, pitched tents gleaming in the light drizzle like the wet fins of sea-creatures.

After they had sluiced off the blood and filth of battle, Alistair walked Dauntless cool, washed the stained and matted flanks, rubbed him down, fed and watered him. He asked Ines to apply poultices to his legs, to draw out any remaining soreness. Then he and Teagan set up their campfire. Around them, a thousand such fires bloomed to life. Their wet cloaks steamed in the heat as they boiled water. So did the coats of mabaris and horses. The smells of wet wool and wet horses expanded to fill the valley...comforting to the boy who had grown up in Eamon's stables. His head felt heavy, stuffed with thick smells and memories…he ran a hand through his wet, ruffled hair. Zevran was always teasing him about the cut…he smiled, thinking of the companions who remained with Rilian's force. Thoughts of Rilian herself washed through in a coloured storm of emotions. The final memory - of her sword slicing through his palm at the Landsmeet - stung; he absently ran a thumb along the thin scar.

They ate soaked wheat and beans, and a lump of soggy bread. Teagan was looking at him as though he had never seen him before.

"Alistair," he said slowly, "I have always followed my brother's orders - his values. I supported his bid to make you King because I wanted to keep the Theirin bloodline on Ferelden's throne. Now, I think," he looked at Alistair hesitantly, as if fearing to hurt him, "that maybe I was wrong. Not because you wouldn't make a fine King but because you are a wonderful Warden."

Alistair looked up, startled. "I always thought I must be a big, fat disappointment."

Teagan winced. "That you felt that way is our fault. You were never a disappointment. Tell me: do you remember a day in your childhood, when the Orlesian First Warden came to Ferelden? She stayed at Castle Redcliffe."

Alistair remembered as though it had been yesterday. As with the rest of his life, he had been shown some mystery, and then it vanished, disappearing like a bubble of light. He had learned to hoard such glimpses, keep them deep in his mind, until he found another and another, linking together like beads on the golden amulet Eamon had given him. He had struggled to make them fit some pattern. Rilian had understood his need to build a fantasy out of disappointing reality - but she had always known what she was, and what her place was, growing out of the Alienage like a young tree. Alistair had had sidelong looks, sly taunts, occasional brief phrases, whispers, suggestions, riddles. "Don't you know, lad?" a guardsmen had once asked him. That guardsman had disappeared soon after. Once, a boy had taunted him: "Only bastards don't know who their parents are."

"Alistair: that Elven woman was your mother. Maric and she had been on a mission to the Deep Roads. Eamon swapped you for another child of Maric's - the baby of a servant girl who died soon after birth."

Alistair's heart thudded as the implication sank in. Goldanna - the family he had tracked down, with Rilian's help - was not his sister.

"My brother wanted to raise a possible heir to the throne - he knew the Landsmeet would never accept a boy of Elven blood. But when Connor was born, he changed his mind. Connor was Cailan's nephew - a true-born heir. That's why you were sent to the Chantry."

Alistair found the look on Teagan's face worse than anything he could have said. He wanted to scream at it, to run from it, to be what all those different people wanted…that they expected him to be without explaining beforehand. He was supposed to guess, to figure it out from hints that were enough for others but had never been enough for him. He had never known where he fit; never known what it was that Eamon wanted - only that he wasn't right. He did not try to express the memories that flooded him now: other children had had brothers and sisters, parents, a pattern into which they fit. All those patterns excluded him: he had been defined, he realized, by negatives. _You are not my brother_, Teagan's son had said, shoving him away when he would have made friends. He had learned not to ask the adult men if they were his father; he had learned not to ask women if they were his mother. When he had asked those questions, in his innocence, he had been thrust away: _you are not my son_. He had learned not to ask the questions that crowded into his head for that would risk the little he did have - the little he did know. And in the unknown spaces he could make up his own answers, safe as long as he did not ask, did not seek the truth. He had hoarded the little bright pictures of parents who would come for him - a sister who would welcome him to a cosy cottage - like treasures that would be torn from him if he spoke of them to a soul. His dreams were not lies if he did not ask. Rilian had once said to him: "I've been an oddball for most of my life - causing trouble, having the elders tut at me. But I always knew what I was a rebel _from_. I knew my father's face, my mother's; I scuffled with Soris, teased Shianni…and I cannot imagine what it would have been like without them. Would I have gone my own way - learned music and reading - if I had not been sure who I was? Have I taken pride in being true to my own vision without realizing how lucky I am to have such a vision?"

Searching for his sister had taken every ounce of courage Alistair possessed. Safer to guard his dreams, his private corners of the mind - what truth could improve them? In his mind, Duncan could be the loving father he had never had - in reality, Duncan had loved him no more than anyone else. Goldanna had hated and resented him. What could anyone build from truths that only took away, that never gave?

"And then," Teagan went on, the quiet, diffident voice flaying him, "came Cailan's instructions before Ostagar. The King wanted Eamon to stay in Redcliffe - wanted an army ready to defend him when he announced his marriage to Empress Celene."

It came to Alistair in a sudden storm that he had been sent to Ishal not by Duncan but by Cailan - because he was a potential heir to Ferelden if things went badly. Cailan was trying to protect him because he knew he had depleted their forces by a third just to safeguard a political marriage. Dully, he thought it was unfair to hate Loghain for his betrayal yet not to hate Cailan and Eamon for the same. But he was too full of anger at himself to feel much anger for anyone else. He was disgusted because he saw now what Rilian had seen - why she had defended Loghain at the Landsmeet. He had hated her for that - had wanted just one person in all the world to put _him_ first - side with him whether right or wrong. Now, as a leader of armies, his longing for something only children wanted ebbed, and he saw the larger picture. Rilian had been true to Duncan's ideals - far truer than Alistair himself had been.

He sat in silence, aware of nothing but exhaustion and the hollow space in his chest. Not that he was beyond surprise, or wise enough to understand all the undercurrents and tangents of the situation. He was too full of regret to be bothered with anger at anyone else. When he tried to tell himself he had messed up because he had been exhausted, a small voice chattered derision: he _hadn't _been exhausted when he had let Morrigan fry his brains. Alert, but stupid. That covered it pretty well.

"Alistair…"

"I need to speak to Riordan," he said dully, and rose to his feet. Teagan made a gesture - a dismayed, aborted movement to stop him - but Alistair did not turn back.

He found Riordan staring out towards the dark expanse to the north: pools of water and night that swallowed the camp like a gigantic sea creature.

"We have done well - better than I hoped. But the main bulk of the horde is still heading toward Ostagar," Riordan said. "I must reach Warden-Commander Tabris - warn her to be ready."

"How?" Alistair blurted. Fear for Riordan - who had become older brother and mentor - displaced regret and grief. "You'll never get past the horde."

Riordan smiled - and gestured toward a cart that lumbered like an ox, driven by a skilled teamster. The cart carried one of the small boats that had dotted Redcliffe's harbour.

"Across Lake Calenhad."

Alistair blinked. "Riordan: that Lake is full of whatever gunk the mages drop from their Tower. Maker knows what things have grown up in the depths!"

Riordan's lips parted in a devilish grin. Bared teeth gleamed white in the darkness. He gave a louche shrug. It was the smile of a man very near his Calling - the smile of a man who has faced torture and darkspawn and the machinations of Orlesian politics. The smile of a born risk-taker who has very little to lose.

"Have I ever told you that you worry too much?" he chided.

* * *

Thin, icy needles of hail struck the hard ground with a metallic clatter, like arrows striking steel. The night was a black-and white swirl of hail and darkness. Channon Cousland squinted into the white-washed distance. A pale almost-moon turned the valley beyond into a lake of silver, cast the starkness of fir trees and the towers beyond into sharp relief. The bleak monolith of Ostagar jutted into the throbbing sky. It was a pale shadow of what it must have once been: a Tevinter fortress of sweeping scale and power - but to Channon all such buildings held the grandeur of tradition, the weight of history. This ancient heaviness had always moved him: given him a sense of his own concerns dwarfed into insignificance. But now he saw the site of his brother's death, of Loghain's treachery. Low, oppressive dark clouds shrouded white stone. The eerie quality of light, the cold water-loud night, reminded Channon of a particular piece of music he had liked. Chilling; a sense of women lamenting. The deep bass notes seemed to crush the listener.

"Loghain," he said, under his breath, the name a dark-shrouded sigh. It wasn't clear to him whether the Teyrn had conspired with Rendon Howe to attack Highever or not. Politically the men were allies, Ferelden isolationists, who had been threatened by Bryce Cousland's overtures to Orlais. Loghain must have known - if not the exact form - of some danger. And Channon was very clear on what had happened afterwards.

The bruises that had marked Channon's time away from Vigil's Keep dungeon like organic clocks had bloomed into a riot of colour - burgundy, indigo, back, yellow-green, ochre, blue - and then faded. Not so the scars; those were for life. A warrior's scars mocked and redrawn in fresh blood; his history, his identity re-written. The memories of every degradation Rendon Howe could think of remained too. It wasn't clear to him that his body could carry this new, forced message. Howe had written; he still had the power to burn the book.

It was Delilah who had helped him escape. The girl who had hated him when they were children had been a fellow sufferer. Not that her father would have cheapened her value on the marriage market by touching her _that_ way. But she did not even realize all he _had_ done.

…_"One day you'll realize just what he's done to you, and then you'll hate him almost as much as I do"…_

Delilah had helped him on the condition that he spare Thomas and Nathaniel. Channon had promised her he would - provided they could prove they'd had nothing to do with the fall of Highever. It was a safe bet: he'd seen Thomas stake his mother and Oriana out in the dirt, slitting Oren's throat in front of them while his men took their pleasure. About Nathaniel he was not so certain. Nathaniel had been summoned from the Marches, where he had been squire to Viscount Dumar of Kirkwall; he doubted Rendon Howe would have risked putting such things in a letter.

He, Delilah, and the imprisoned former seneschal, Varel, had escaped through the tunnels beneath the Vigil's Keep basement. Tunnels that had led all the way to the Deep Roads…moving through them to a smuggler's cove near Amaranthine, to an inn named the Crown and Lion…even to an abandoned wasteland called Drake's Fall. No darkspawn had troubled them; the horde massed in the south. Here the seeds of the rebellion had been planted: rescued men and Elves, some of the Banns not brought to Ostagar. But nothing could have flowered without the one who had joined them when the starving fugitives fled a counterstrike, taking shelter in a mountain fort named Soldier's Peak.

After that things had moved fast. Vigil's Keep was taken right after Rendon Howe summoned Thomas and Nathaniel to the Arl of Denerim's palace; Highever soon after. Lord Eddelbrek's farmlands had been a priceless coup; Channon had offered aid to Queen Anora in return for both Teynrir and Arling. He knew she had lied when she told him her father was innocent of Howe's crimes - and had killed the man to prove it. He knew also she had already promised the North to the sons of Howe, in return for their aid against the darkspawn. He had almost decided to remain in Highever, knowing that possession of the castles would translate to ownership. Let the Howe brothers spend their forces against the darkspawn; they would not unseat him. A Cousland always did his duty first: but _duty _meant duty to one's lineage, and to the farmers, soldiers and serfs under his protection. The concept of Ferelden as a nation meant little to the Couslands: like all the nobles whose bloodlines predated Calenhad, they had more in common with the knights of Orlais than with those who shared a mere geographical location.

He was not entirely sure why he had not followed that sound reasoning. Was it because, during the months of campaigning, he had come to see how his freeholders and Elven servants lived - that maybe his father had been wrong to suppose their lot would be improved by a union with Orlais? Or because he would not have it said that the last remaining Cousland had shown cowardice?

Or was it the Blood Mage's influence? Perhaps he was not the author of his own thoughts, his decisions.

He turned to the hooded figure beside him. The creature he had rescued from demons at Soldier's Peak now barely resembled the human man he had been. His scalp was dirty, almost hairless, his lips thin and lacking even a hint of pink. The soft cartilage of nose and ears had collapsed into mere vestigial lumps. Loose, ragged flesh hung from the scrawny neck, undulating when he turned his head. His eyes were orbs of black floating on beds of dark red. Channon saw only glimmers of recognition reflective of the man he had been. It wasn't so much an emotion or expression but rather the way a certain shadow fell across his face, in a manner more obscuring of the gaze of an abomination than revealing of his human self. The black eyes were piercing - Channon could see the potential for horror there - but behind them was a depth and a darkness that transcended humanity, a wisdom that reached back through two centuries, an intelligence connected to a higher realm. Avernus was a being possessed of powerful magic. Diabolical magic, yes - but after what Channon had endured good and evil were malleable terms.

"So what is your payment for helping me, Blood Mage? I've never understood."

"Besides the pleasure of your company?"

Channon's smile was thin, like the gleam of a knife. "Yes, besides that."

"To face the horde, of course. I am a Warden - have always been a Warden, long before I became…something else. I can sense there is a Blight. I can sense where the largest mass of the creatures will assemble. And I seek power. The power to do what I want to do…need to do."

He reminded Channon of a raven, preening its oily black feathers. "And what is it that you want to do?"

"I want to learn the secrets of this taint of ours…the taint Wardens share with the darkspawn. I want to learn of its origin, and how it may be conquered. There are secrets so dark, so deep, that the only way to discover them is to tear open the Black City and root about in its foundations."

Corruption cloaked this strange, altered man so palpably that Channon had the sensation that if he reached to touch him, his hand would mire in gelatinous, clinging taint.

"You speak strangely, Warden," Channon said slowly, "Death and taint - I thought they were the same thing."

Avernus grinned maliciously, though at what Channon was not certain. "Oh no - not remotely. The taint - is _change_. From human to…something else."

Avernus' black eyes lost their lustre - for a moment, the encircling red seemed to vanish entirely, leaving only holes in a darkened skull. An oppressive tension filled the night. "My dreams - those few nights when sleep actually comes - are full of the Call. Of the decaying hulk with colossal wings - of the memories rising like bubbles from a rotting mind, calling the darkspawn to the surface. Of the silver mesh of the Song - and the dark web of the hive-mind between. You do not see that all you have suffered - all the deaths in one puny Civil war - are as nothing compared to what will come - if we do not prevent it. I have helped you because you will bring me to that battle."

The Blood Mage's mottled staff seemed a living thing; something pulled against its will from beneath rock. As Avernus held it before him, the wind lifted his cloak, spreading it like wings. For a moment, the wavering darkness made him a thing: a demon out of legend. Channon wondered why he was not more angry over being used as a pawn. He had the strange sense that he himself had stepped into the pages of a story - almost as if, but for a twist of fate, he had been meant to be here all along.

* * *

Three weeks after entering Cailan's tent, Rilian went to sleep in the same spot - within the golden tent that had been her gift from the soldiers. It had taken the army a week to reach Ostagar - and another week before the Dalish Keepers had cleansed the taint that shrouded it by magical fire. The sight had been inexpressibly moving: an intimation of what might lie on the other side of the Veil. The rotten tendrils and inky shadows sloughed off like a defiled, clinging garment, to fall away like cast-off rags. The green-and-purple flames reaching high, leaving white stone as freshly-scrubbed as Cyrion's floor, like the bleached bones of some vast noble creature. There was a power in the flames that was not just burning - Rilian had had an inchoate sense of the Wild's power to re-create itself, absorb and transmute even the Blight. Keeper Marethari had been surprised and gratified when she hesitantly broached the subject - and Rilian and the old healer had spent many hours cloistered in Ostagar's Temple, which Rilian had commandeered for her research. She had the sense that the Keeper's magic would prove important somehow.

Not that she had made any other progress. Along with Wynne and Jowan, she had tested her sample of blood, made what notes she could - but they were hampered by lack of knowledge and lack of equipment. What she wouldn't give for a mage's worktable! One lead had been Wynne's story of a potion given to King Maric by Enchanter Remille, to protect him from taint. But Loghain had exploded that story as a lie, a placebo. The Orlesians had had no interest in protecting Ferelden's King. His untimely death on a fool's mission would have played into their hands.

Something scratched at the tent flap. Rilian ignored it, turning over, still half-asleep. One hand reached out - caressed the smooth neck of the instrument Valendrian had made for her. He had followed Rilian's design - a longer, slimmer version of her lute, six-stringed, traced by runes of lightning that gave the chords a wailing twang never heard in Thedas before. Her companions were not convinced - Wynne and Loghain remarked darkly that music was not what it had been in their day, Shianni compared it with the mating cry of One-Eyed Sal, and Rylock told her it made her think of the sound of souls hurled into the Void. Even Leliana listened with a curiously frozen expression - the look of someone noting but choosing to ignore the assassination of good music. Rilian remained undaunted. She conceded the instrument required a whole new style of play - but set herself to experimenting. She hadn't decided on a name yet.

The scratching at the tent flap became an ear-splitting yell. Ravenous exploded into fierce barking. Prepared for anything, Rilian reached for Dworkin's crossbow.

It was, in fact, Dworkin himself. "Only me." Excitement rang in the simple words. Muttering sleepily, Rilian flung open the tent flap. Dworkin bustled in, grabbing Rilian's arm. "You're not dressed," he observed, and bubbled on, undisturbed by Rilian's glower. "I've got something to show you. Simplest thing in the world. Can't imagine why I didn't think of it sooner."

All Rilian's questions earned the same knowing grin. Soon she was smiling too. Dworkin's enthusiasm was irresistible. She shooed him out and pulled on one of Alistair's old tunics, her black leggings, and Adaia's boots. Then she got up to follow. One hand absently stroked the smooth slab of Ravenous' square head.

"Go back to sleep, boy. Big day tomorrow."

As soon as she stepped outside she saw that the landscape had been transformed overnight. The Maker had been at work - scattering the land with a frozen shower of snow, diamond-bright ice crystals that covered the bleak stone like ice on a wedding cake. The surrounding tents were outlined in white like the sails of ships in harbour; the cuneiform of bird's footprints speckled the wooden stockades. The courtyard by the main gates gleamed like a great, grey frozen lake - the valley beyond was a blue-and-white moonscape stretching to the dark edge of the pre-dawn sky. What had been a poisoned, decaying stone hulk was now a white city, dressed like a bride for her husband. Discovering the world's power to reshape itself, Rilian was speechless, euphoric.

She followed Dworkin west, towards the kennels. Near the western gate, the white, dead tree still stood - but now it was wreathed in silver ice that transformed it to an intricate latticework, as fine and delicate as lace. The shimmering mesh seemed to hold up the milky, opaque sky. It was like living inside a pearl. The pale sun was rising behind them, splintering into spears of light, as of ethereal armies. Translucent fog swayed and danced like a sea of ghosts.

The stone courtyard was vast and featureless as a lake of ice. Rilian and Dworkin were alone, though the faint light of torches bobbed around the perimeter, and the clattering of pots to the north told her Cyrion and his crew were up and about. In the quiet and stillness, Rilian felt solid and real, far removed from the ghost the Architect had made of her. Whenever she tried to think of the Architect her mind balked, fragmented...her thoughts skittered away. Even her memory of him had taken on the surreality of nightmare...she saw his rippling, robed form melt and crawl and change like a misshapen candle, becoming that of a huge black spider that held her down, injected a proboscis that pumped her full of poison...her whole body torn open, everything exposed. Nothing left that was hers.

But she was alive, as numb and empty as a glass in the winter sunlight, bathed in the impersonal vastness of the fortress.

Behind the mabari kennels was the long wooden structure of the stables; newly built. Ferelden's army had fielded only a small number of horses...used by Loghain's men in their charge from cover. Now, the addition of the Templar horses proved a logistical nightmare. Loghain argued fiercely with Rylock that the animals were useless mouths - and she retorted that she would rather roast and eat him than the destriers. So they were kept here, and looked after by the Templars like four-legged altars, fed better than the Templars themselves.

They passed three Templars left on duty, huddled together like survivors in the wreckage of a storm. Snatches of their impassioned conversation drifted over:

"You want to know what happened? I'll tell you. The Orlesian Chantry wrote to Grand Cleric Odila and told her not to send men to Ostagar...and she obeyed." Templar-Sergeant Rocald - whom Rilian privately knew as Rockhead - was speaking. Head like a rock, face scarred like a battle-axe. He'd joined the Order late in life - after his wife and children were slain at Redcliffe castle by the demon inside Connor.

"_What_?!" That was Merriot, a younger son of Bann Franderel. He looked too young to be fighting at all. The third man was Irminric. After his ordeal in Arl Howe's dungeon, he still looked faintly otherworldly, his fair hair prematurely greying.

"Wait, just wait. It gets better. When our Knight Commander went to her replacement, Grand Cleric Leanna forbade her to lead us against the darkspawn. Oh yes. Because they were orders from the Knight Divine. Ser Gerard Caron ordered us to do nothing against the Blight - and allowed Revered Mother Boann to be defiled!"

Rocald looked strange - fierce - his dark eyes burning in his corrugated face. Sweat gleamed on his cheekbones. Blood pulsed under his skin.

Rilian knew Rylock was no politician; she had told only her most senior officers what they had discovered at Ostagar. She would not have opened Boann's grave, shown the dead face, to become a rallying cry. But someone _had_ talked. At first Rilian had thought it was one of the Templar officers. But she had reconsidered. After all, who gained from a schism between the Ferelden and Orlesian Chantries? Loghain was a wily old Ferelden mabari, and doubtless some of Rendon Howe's guile had rubbed off.

Not that they were accusing the Divine herself: the habit of worship was too strong. It was the Knight Divine on whom was laid the burden of condemnation. He was too close to the Throne, they said, and had taken advantage of the Divine's age and illness to do the Empress' bidding.

"Who told you?"

"Who told me? Ha! Who told me! I'll tell you who told me!" Rilian wondered if he were going a little mad. Food was not the only thing in short supply. The new Grand Cleric, the former Revered Mother Leanna of Amaranthine, had refused to send the customary supplies of lyrium. Rylock had been too proud to bring this to her attention - but, like all good Alienage citizens, Rilian was good at keeping her ear to the ground. She had sent a message to her old supervisor Garn Brosca for help - and the duster Rogek had arrived in camp yesterday bearing gifts. Rilian had no way of knowing whether his bootleg lyrium was the same as the official version - who knew what the Chantry added to theirs? - and guessed it must taste like Alarith's white cider compared with champagne. Rylock had hesitated before accepting - a bitter struggle between morals and necessity - and had darkly remarked: "I had wondered at the hold you seemed to possess over Knight Commander Harith. Now much is made clear." Rilian had never wanted her friend to know that she had supplemented her docks income with Brosca's trade - or that, during her ragtag rebellion against Loghain, she had sold to Godwin at Kinloch Hold for fifty sovereigns.

"_Our _Knight Commander doesn't take orders from Ser Gerard le Craven Caron! _We'll _shoulder our weapons to fight the darkspawn though it cost us our lives! _We_ won't play games of ransom with the birthplace of Andraste! We're going to stay and fight _to our last drop of blood_!"

Teeth like tombstones under his bloodshot glare. A ravaged crater of a face: dark, frozen, twisted. A living, walking apocalypse.

"But if there were orders..."

"_Damn _the orders! We'll fight _without_ orders!"

And he was off - like a stone from a catapult - to spread the word.

Dworkin led her past the Templars... past the stables, where a young squire gave them a cheery wave...finally stopping at an enormous pile of manure! Rilian quickly clapped a hand to her nose. Dworkin showed her what he called his methane production tank with the pride of a man discussing fine jewellery. Rilian considered his preoccupation with horse shit just another facet of Dworkin's oddness, and was just wondering if this was what she had come to see when he brought her to what he called his "office". An out of the way cranny, Rilian was not surprised to learn it had been a stall before Dworkin claimed it as his own. Now it had a new window, freshly cut, and a long worktable that stretched the length of one of the walls. The opposite wall was fitted with shelves. The space remaining in the centre was just enough for a man to turn about. The table was littered with jars of all sizes and shapes, a large mortar and pestle, and a crude scale. Dworkin posed under the window, grinning like a child with a secret. Rilian finally had to ask what she was supposed to see.

Dworkin was crestfallen. "You didn't notice? Can't you smell it?"

Patiently, Rilian replied: "I haven't been able to smell anything else since I got here. I've got to tell you, Dworkin, it doesn't intrigue me."

Roaring with laughter, Dworkin said: "Not the manure. This!" He hoisted a sack off the shelf. "The cloudheads use it all the time. For the soil. They doctor the horses with it."

Mystified, Rilian looked in the bag. "Sulphur?" she asked. She heard her voice questioning Dworkin's sanity.

Dworkin was even more amused. "You just don't see it, do you?" With his hands on Rilian's shoulders, he steered her outside: "Look over there - that charcoal oven. Now the sulphur. And now..." he guided her to stare down into the feculent mass of the manure settling pond. A kind of white scum floated on top.

"That white stuff?" Rilian asked blankly, "Like salt?"

"Salt." Scorn dripped from the word. "Don't you cloudheads know anything? That "white stuff" is Salis Petrae - similar in composition to lyrium sand. The charcoal oven. The sulphur. Doesn't that suggest _anything_ to you?"

"Oh Maker," Rilian said, breathing hard, "Gaatlok. You're working on the formula for Gaatlok."

Dworkin practically trotted back into his office, leaving Rilian with no choice but to follow. "I knew I was close before: the mixture of lyrium sand, sulphur and charcoal in the grenades was good for starting fires. But no oomph, you know. It riled me to think of those hornheads being able to manage something we dwarves couldn't. I even wondered if we _had_ invented the stuff, way back when - and been forbidden to use it. Explosions in an underground city - casteless being able to get their hands on the stuff - it wouldn't have pleased the deshyrs. I reckon I'm _reinventing_ Dwarven Blackpowder."

He pointed out jars of the white powder, then pots with a black, grainy substance. "I've got a pretty good supply now - those Templar horses are sent by the Ancestors! But I can't get the mix to work right." He banged one of the jars on the table and sent Rilian into an instinctive cringe. Memories of her experience lighting the grenades with Nathaniel Howe were vivid in her mind. "This is good charcoal. Willow. And the sulphur's straight from the Frostbacks. Pure as the morning's snow." As he talked he was dumping dabs of each in a different pot, stirring it round with a stick. He poked at it viciously. The pot rolled drunkenly.

Rilian grabbed his arm. "Be careful!" she squeaked. "If you blow us up, it's going to be a problem."

"If we don't find a trump card against the spawn we won't have any more problems. Ever."

His argument couldn't be denied.

Dworkin dumped the newest batch into his tiny firepit. It sizzled and spat blue flame that smoked horribly. He shook his head sadly.

Rilian thought of the Alienage story of the box. What was invented couldn't be uninvented. She saw again the pool, its reflections disturbed, rippling outwards. But Dworkin was right.

"Anything you need - supplies or workers - I'll get you. Make this for Ferelden, Dworkin. We need this."

"Aye, Warden, you'll have your explosives. Bigger and better."

Rilian turned to leave - and a messenger caught up to her, breathless from running.

"Warden-Commander! Armies. Armies at Ostagar's gates!"

Rilian headed south immediately, towards the chill enormous racks of iron spears, encased in snow. The camp was alive, energised. She saw Loghain, striding out of the tent he shared with Cauthrien, like a grizzled Ferelden juggernaut. She passed the Quartermaster's office, then the mage encampment - now home to just Wynne, Jowan and Morrigan, the Dalish Keepers remaining with their own. Morrigan and Wynne were already finding the encampment not big enough for the both of them, while Jowan remained with Ser Otto out of choice, finding him better company than either of them. A cluster of Templars stood nearby. They looked anxious and confused.

"...I never trusted the Knight Divine. I always said so, didn't I? I always said he had the heart of a mercenary."

"Orlesians are all the same." That was handsome young Cullen, whom Rylock had recruited straight after the horrors at the Circle Tower. Knight Commander Greagoir had not trusted him to remain with the surviving mages, and he had found in Rylock an unexpected support. When no more than his age, she had survived a similar experience. He was fired up, nervous, twitching like a fly on a fishhook.

"He's a politician, pure and simple. He joined the Order to seek his fortune, not to fight for the Maker."

"Wasn't he once in the Empress' service?"

"That's right. And do you know why he left? Because Celene promised him her cousin's hand, and then broke her promise. That's why he joined the Order - because he missed out on marrying royalty. He was never a _true_ Templar."

"And by his order, Ostagar and Lothering fell. Ser Bryant and his knights died to the last man. And Revered Mother Boann..." but Cullen could not finish.

"May the Maker strike him down for his sinfulness."

Rilian looked past them - to the quiet figure sitting by the tents. She had never seen her friend like that: despairing, staring blankly into his darkness. She could hardly bear to look at Ser Otto, sitting beside Jowan over an untouched game of chess. She wanted to go to him - needed to, because their shared love for Boann meant that no-one else in the world could come as near to him right now. But her coward feet remained rooted in the snow. His face was breaking her heart.

Relieved - hating herself - she allowed herself to be swept along - caught up in the excitement of their unexpected reinforcements.

* * *

Not all the reinforcements were unexpected. Riordan had journeyed from Redcliffe, sailing across Lake Calenhad to avoid the horde to the south, bringing word that the armies of Redcliffe, led by Bann Teagan, and the mages and Templars of Kinloch Hold, led by Knight Commander Greagoir and First Enchanter Irving, were on the march, commanded by Warden Alistair. They'd successfully defended Redcliffe from a darkspawn attack, and were now harrying the main force, driving them toward Ostagar. This was part of Loghain's plan.

Also expected were the Dwarves, who had marched from Orzammar. They had come out of the Deep Roads near Kinloch Hold, crossed the River Dane, then headed south.

What neither Rilian nor Loghain had expected was the army of grim, hard fighting men - many of them mercenaries and some of them Elves! - who followed Teyrn Channon Cousland. Nelaros had spoken of a fun-loving young nobleman whose tousled fair hair and easy charm was better suited to wooing the ladies than fighting. This pale wraith with strange scars seemed very different.

"My "army"," he said with repressed bitterness as he, Loghain, Rilian, Riordan and Kardol of the Legion met in the command tent, at the round table, "Or what is left of it after my father's men fell to Howe's treachery, and my brother's fell..." _to yours_, hung in the air as he stared with knifing enmity at Loghain "...at Ostagar," he finished, "and my battle mage - " and here he glanced at Rilian, with none of the usual scorn Ferelden nobles had for Elves, "are at your disposal."

"Yes," Rilian said, unable to take her eyes from the - man? - sitting beside Channon. The story Channon had told - of how his rebellion had sought shelter in an old abandoned keep while on the run from Howe's men - how that keep had once belonged to the Wardens - and how this Blood Mage was a survivor of a battle fought two-hundred years ago - was incredible. She could hardly wait for the war council to be finished so she could question him privately.

She found the...man, Avernus, staring at her just as intently. The taint crackled darkly between them. She felt forcibly the conflict between his decaying face and the awful vitality of his black eyes. They boiled with intelligence. His self-contradictory visage, the disfocus of his hot eyes, made him look wild - an appearance aggravated by his few remaining tufts of hair that clung to his mottled scalp like tendrils of taint. And yet his skeletal hands made reassuring gestures; his stance was welcoming, even deferential.

Perhaps because of the nightmare the Architect had become for her, Rilian was struck by the thought that Avernus resembled a spider. The keep Channon described - Soldier's Peak - seemed like the centre of his web; its tunnels the strands. Channon had been caught in it - an out-numbered fugitive mounting a near hopeless rebellion - and Avernus had used him for his own ends, to defeat the demons who held him captive and bring him here.

Loghain was explaining his strategy to Channon. "The forces of Warden Alistair will drive the horde toward us, using the Frostback River to prevent them retreating to the Wilds. My men and the armies of King Bhelen will block the escape route to the north, between east of Lake Calenhad and Lothering Forest. The Templars under Knight Commander Rylock, the Dalish archers and mages, will hold Ostagar. Between us, we will encircle the darkspawn, crush the horde against itself."

The meeting showed no sign of ending soon. Rilian rose with a thin smile.

"Excuse me, gentlemen. My fellow Warden and I have much to discuss. Avernus - come with me to my laboratory, if you would."

Avernus rose, his spidery fingers steepled together, and followed her like a ghost, a wraith. Rilian thought, once more, of the Architect. _The living dead and the dead living..._

She hurried past the bustle of camp, ignoring greetings and exclamations of surprise, not stopping until she reached the cool shelter of the monolithic Old Temple. The area was cordoned off - Rilian allowed only Jowan and Wynne access here. At the moment, it was deserted.

She helped Avernus to one of the chairs she had "borrowed" from Arl Eamon's tent. His breathing had a thick tubercular wheeze that was painful to hear. She sat opposite him, with her worktable and notes between.

At last she had the opportunity to observe him more closely. He conveyed an impression of suppressed haste, as though he were trying to resist the acceleration of some internal process. His movements were deliberate, tightly controlled; but his eyes flicked from side to side with a discernible rhythm, like a heartbeat being gradually goaded faster by adrenaline.

He _is_ like the Architect! she realised. Once away from whatever enchantments kept him alive, he too was racing against dissolution.

Swallowing hard to clear her throat, she said: "There are things I must know: about how to create the Joining mixture. We lost the last at Ostagar."

In response, he let out a bark of laughter. The sound of it wheezed and rasped in the shadowed silence. "They sent you to face an Archdemon and they didn't even tell you that?"

Rilian was in no mood for levity. "I know enough to give my life against the Archdemon. I have fought Broodmothers and sentient darkspawn and Hurlock Generals while you mouldered away, imprisoned by your own mistakes."

Abruptly, he unfolded one age-spotted hand from his chest to stab his index finger in her direction. "I have done more than that," he hissed intensely, "I have brought supplies of the Joining mixture with me - my own improved formula, which increases Warden powers considerably and prevents any need for a Calling."

Rilian sat bolt upright, hope jolting through her like lightning. "You have it here! And you say you can prevent the Calling - does that mean you've found a cure for Taint?!"

"Not a cure. It is a disease that cannot _be_ cured - it can only be slowed down. Assimilated by increasing the power in the blood, so that the worst effects - the deaths during the Joining, the accelerated decrepitude, the female infertility - can be ameliorated. Warden-Commander Dryden was very specific about the last requirement."

Rilian clapped a hand to her mouth to smother the hysterical, delighted laugh that threatened to tear forth. "But don't you see - that _is_ a cure! How many diseases has mankind assimilated over the millennia? Children get marshfever, and then recover. What remains still exists within then, making them immune to other illnesses. The disease is neutralised." And to herself, she wondered: _is this what the Architect was searching for?_ "Tell me of your studies," she went on, "Tell me everything."

"I doubt you would understand. I have no wish to waste the little time remaining to me." He flicked his eyes at her, and then away, back and forth in turn, their rhythm eloquent of mounting pressure, perhaps even of violence.

Rilian felt the skin of her face tighten: a smile thin as the blade of a knife. "Try me."

"I sought to refine the Joining - isolate the true power found in darkspawn blood, leaving behind the evil that kills us. So close...but I feel the corruption congealing within my blood, like droplets of darkness. I am starting to hear things, even when awake. A voice - more beautiful than any other - calls to me from the depths. In my dreams, I see the Black City and am drawn towards it. There is something there, an answer to what this taint is, this taint we share with the darkspawn."

Softly, Rilian said: "I believe the answer would lie within the ruins of Arlathan. I believe that the Black City was tainted long before the magisters invaded. I believe that demons and taint come from the same roots."

Without warning, Avernus snapped, "The Elves!" He sounded grimly angry - but the expression in his eyes might have been gratitude for this missing piece of the puzzle. Whatever emotions appeared on his ruined face or in his voice had no effect on the movement of his eyes. The rhythm continued as he told his story from the beginning: the rebellion against the tyrant Arland, led by Sophia Dryden - her orders that led him to sacrifice countless Wardens to test his formula - their final, desperate last stand that ended when the demons summoned by Blood Magic turned on friend and foe alike.

As he spoke the edges of Rilian's vision went dim with the red rush of fury. "So," she said, her contempt pouring forth, rich and dark as taint, "Your experiments in resisting taint were motivated not by a quest to cure humanity, but to satisfy one woman's greed for longer life, political power, and children. Did you not realise what you held in your hands?! That if a version of this formula were administered to people - even to the Old Gods themselves - there would be no more Blights? No - all you sought was a means of granting more power to the Wardens themselves! Didn't it occur to you that the true purpose of Wardens is to render themselves unnecessary?"

At once, a spasm of fury twisted his face. He squeezed his eyes shut. As if they weren't under his control, his hands curled into clawed fists and began punching at his temples. She saw that he was holding his breath.

Fiercely, he sucked in a deep breath through his decayed nose and opened his eyes. One muscle at a time, as if, by a supreme act of will, he regained command of himself.

He said, absently, "So, you are a visionary too. Perhaps what Sophia Dryden should have been." The rhythm of his eyes was faster, however, flicking to her and away like the stalking beat of his death.

Rilian thought, once more, of the Architect. Now that she had grasped what she could of Avernus' formula, she realised it wouldn't save his people. It would save hers - it might even save the Old Gods - because their own untainted blood existed alongside the infection. Darkspawn blood was the fruit of a rotten tree; there wasn't anything left to salvage.

_If I could have shown him this, would it have changed anything? Perhaps not - he would still see the Children as a way of creating life from death - a new species. Never knowing what it is to be __untainted, he would not know the difference. Yet...I saw _his _vision in my mind. When I meet him again, could I show him _mine_?_

The strain of holding onto life brought sweat to Avernus' forehead. He spoke to the rhythm of his eyes:

"If you intend to be the one to die, you'd better make sure you have people to carry on our work. To the Joining; without delay."

The words were a clammy hand on the small of Rilian's back.

* * *

When Jowan realised Ser Otto's heart wasn't in the chess-game, he suggested they play later. The Templar didn't even look up. Jowan shuffled towards his own tent. Smells of morning broth, grimy sweat, herbs, leather and woodsmoke assailed him. He rooted around in his backpack - found a silver needle and thread given him by Wynne - and set about stitching a tear in his clean white tunic and trousers. Jowan liked the colour - it was safe, soothing, as far from the colour of blood as was possible. Wynne passed him - heading towards some commotion at the front gates - and called out. Jowan pretended he hadn't heard. Wynne was always giving him unwanted advice; Morrigan was less irritating, but she frightened him.

A coarse shout made him look up. Here came the Templar squires, Ord and Welf, who tormented him whenever Ser Otto wasn't there to look out for him. Ord exuded a smell of rotten vegetables. The charm of a dead cow, the wit of a swamp. Beside him, Welf the parsnip. Long, pale and stringy. Slouching along in oversized Templar tunics, the purple skirts flapping limply around their skinny calves.

_What a splendid pair. What an inspiration. With those two on our side, who needs the Maker?_

"So what are you doing, pretty maid?" Welf airing his stunted sense of humour. "Sewing your trousseau? Eh? Sewing your bridal gown?"

"That's right. Knight Commander Rylock has asked me to marry her."

A soggy explosion of sniggers from Welf. Ord just stood there. Wouldn't know a joke if it bit him on the behind. Still, they were the least of Jowan's problems. Ser Cullen, Ser Irminric, and Templar Sergeant Rocald all looked at him like hounds scenting a fox. He supposed they had reason to be angry. Rocald had lost his family to the undead at Redcliffe. Cullen had been one of the knights knocked off his feet by Blood Magic during Jowan's desperate escape from the Tower - probably blamed him for Uldred too. Irminric was still not recovered from his time in Howe's dungeon.

It wasn't fair! He wanted to tell them the abominations were Connor's doing - he'd had nothing to do with Uldred's schemes - he hadn't asked Howe to rescue him, or imprison his captors. But they wouldn't believe him anyhow.

A trio of Loghain's soldiers passed by. They peered at the tableaux, sizing them up, then sniffed in a neutral sort of way. Jowan caught snatches of their conversation - something about a letter the Teyrn had had from the Orlesian Chantry.

..."I wonder how long," one said, "before it comes to war."

"We _are_ at war," said another, "it's only a matter of where we shall fight the battle. It would be impious to attack the Chantry. But sooner or later we shall have to deal with the chevaliers."

"Are you sure? The louder they bark, the more you can see their rotten teeth."

"Not so rotten we can do with them in our backsides when we fight the darkspawn."...

The rest of the conversation drifted into the wind.

Jowan could make no sense of the shifting political tides - had no idea what it might mean for him, or anyone else. The Circle mages were considered neither Ferelden nor Orlesian - they enjoyed the protection of no nation, and were considered to hold no loyalty. They were just...just mages. The talk of strategy - of where they would fight the darkspawn, and how - was a foreign language. Incomprehensible to him unless Ser Otto explained it - as the knight had shaped the howling chaos of their last battle into pieces that made sense, helped Jowan conquer fear.

Now that Ser Otto was closed in on himself, and communicated nothing but grief, Jowan found that he was increasingly handicapped. Adrift, not knowing what would happen or what his role might be. The gifts of chess and strategy and perception were being taken away from him. Ser Otto was like a man who was dying - and Jowan was like a man who was gradually going blind.

The two squires were suddenly scattered by a presence scarcely less fearful than an angry Knight Commander.

A long red shadow loomed before him. The Warden-Commander faced him in her Dragonscale armour, blocking his light. Her eyes were bright with sleeplessness; skin so pale it seemed translucent over her angular bone structure. No soft tissue; no fat - like a mechanism of overdriven steel and wire. Sword-point pupils black and inescapable.

Jowan knew - before she even opened her mouth - that this boded nothing good.

* * *

Duncan had been wrong - quite wrong, Rilian realised, in his assumption that the Wardens would have no more recruits if the secret of the Joining came to light. In fact, they had better recruits - men and women who knew the risks and chose to take them. Rilian thought of poor Ser Jory with a sigh. She didn't doubt that Duncan had believed his own argument - but she strongly suspected the edict had come from the First Warden simply to prevent nations creating their own Wardens, unbound to Weisshaupt.

When she delivered a short speech at the army camp, six men and women stepped forward. Ser Otto was first - then came five soldiers under Loghain's command. His young scout, Carver Hawke, two knights from Denerim: Rowland and Mhairi, and one of his Captains, a flame-haired woman named Aveline Vallen. Last to step forward was Alim Surana. Rilian also spoke to Kardol, and strongly recommended the women in the Legion Join as a matter of course - to protect them from the fate that awaited untainted darkspawn prisoners. The only two women - an icy blonde and a wiry dark-haired scout - agreed quite willingly. The final candidate was the one who brought a guilty pang to Rilian's chest. The only one who had been given no choice, no option - Jowan.

As the afternoon shadows lengthened about the camp, casting oblong pillars into red-tinged dragon's teeth, Rilian spoke briefly with the nine. She interviewed them in her laboratory - test-tubes, syringes, notes and vials of blood carefully tidied away. On the worktable was a pitcher containing her favourite Dalish invention: hot water infused with dried herbs. It looked like dirty water. It tasted delicious. She offered the young Denerim knight Mhairi a cup, then ran through the risks of the Joining as calmly as she could. Mhairi seemed not to hear her.

"To defend my country against the greatest threat of all. I cannot imagine a greater honour."

Rowland, next, seemed cut from the same cloth. He actually blushed when he took her hand.

"To fight alongside the Dragonslayer!"

Rilian was torn between the desires to preen, and to weep for his innocence.

Captain Vallen was another surprise. A red-haired Amazon tall as Rylock, and broader in the shoulder. Rilian felt instantly that here was a rock she could rely on. Something in the dour, no-nonsense manner reminded her of Shianni.

"If you don't mind me asking - why would one of Loghain's Captains want to Join?" she questioned, genuinely curious.

The square-jawed face echoed Wynne's when she had accused Loghain. Vivid green eyes blazed; freckles standing out sharp and clear on her pale skin. "I began as a Captain in the King's service, not the Teyrn's. I fought beside him when he was slain. I barely escaped with my life. Because of the Teyrn's actions, the village of Lothering was next to fall - along with all its Templars, including my husband. I fled east, protecting the lad Carver Hawke and his family. We had...help, getting to Gwaren. I'm not sure you'd believe me if I told you. At Gwaren we faced the choice: flee Ferelden, or take ship to Denerim. I...could not bear to desert my country - but neither do I wish to serve under the man who betrayed me and so many others!"

Carver told a similar story. He was a pragmatic youngster who did not seem to feel personally betrayed by Loghain. He even respected him - as much as he was capable of respecting any authority. He talked so much about his family Rilian felt as if she knew them. The lovely, gentle twin sister who had died at Lothering - the erratic mother with her dreams of restoring the family name - and the firebrand older sibling who had promised to make that happen. "But that's Emily's goal - not mine. I have to be something on my own. I want to look forward, not back."

She already knew why Alim wanted to Join. The young Night Elf - built like a horseship, skin the colour of toasted almonds, dark eyes that missed nothing - was very clear about his need to avenge his father.

"What about Tia?" Rilian found herself asking. Alim blushed.

"She'll wait for me," he said stolidly, "Wardens aren't like Templars - are they?" His face creased with worry.

"No," said Rilian, smiling, "We can have relationships."

"And I could be of use to you," he added, with a cocky smile. Rilian exclaimed aloud when a small blue spark shot from his fingertips.

"You're a mage!"

He shrugged. "I can spark my arrowheads, make my aim a bit truer, keep myself warm in winter. I wouldn't have cut it in the Circle - and your Templar never sensed me. They'd have probably made me one of those funny fellows who never change expression."

"Does Loghain know?"

"Of course! Father was always honest with him. He's a decent man - he knows what apostates did for the rebellion. He contrived to remain carefully ignorant."

"Surana..." Rilian mused. "Surana. Do you know a Lia Surana?"

"My father's cousin. She married into the Denerim Alienage."

"I know her! She had a daughter who went to the Circle." Rilian was delighted to meet someone with whom she shared a history. Gossip about family and relations was part of the Alienage life blood.

"The Suranas have always had magic in our blood. Sometimes it skips a generation, but it always crops back."

Next came Ser Otto and Jowan. Although the mage guided the knight, it seemed to be Otto leading him and not the other way round. Jowan's face was pale, tense - he looked like he was going to be sick. Quietly, Rilian whispered to Ser Otto:

"You don't have to Join just because Jowan does. I need you to keep him on the straight and narrow but..."

"Do you think I could send a brother into danger and remain aloof myself?" Ser Otto asked mildly. And then - so softly Rilian wasn't sure whether she had imagined it - added, "Perhaps as a Warden I will hear her call me."

The two Dwarven women came last. Rilian and Sigrun clicked instantly; she knew she had found a kindred spirit when Sigrun remarked: "Does the land always do this - drop funny white stuff like rock crystals that melt in my hand?" Sigrun laughed off the effects of the Joining: "I'm already dead! I've nothing to lose."

The other woman was...harder to understand at first. She was blonde, pale, with eyes that burned like blue-hot opals, full of shifting fires. Rilian found them cold and repellent - like the predatory stare of a shark - but she felt their intelligence as a force behind them.

"My name was Gedren Aeducan," she said - in a low alto voice resonant of command, "Now I am known as Sarela."

"Kinslayer," Rilian translated.

"So not all Elves are as ignorant as Casteless." Her smile was a glint like a dagger drawn. "Kinslayer - indeed."

Rilian decided it was best to ask no questions.

The woman said: "But if you are not ignorant - I find it harder to understand what you did."

"What I did?"

"You have destroyed our future. You were swayed by Caridin's arguments about your people's slavery - but you of all people should know the fate of those forced to live as strangers in strange lands. The Alienages exist in the shadow of human walls - the Dalish cling to scraps of lost glory - yet by destroying the golems you will force us to accept the same, one day. You have lost your own culture and destroyed another - and felt yourself justified in making the decision for the sake of individual souls. But we Dwarves return to the Stone when we die - and what better way than as a golem, defending Orzammar. You denied _us_ the chance to make the Ultimate Sacrifice, even as the Wardens vaunt it."

Shadows turned the face before her into stone, pale and unchanging. Rilian seemed to hear Wynne's voice: _You thought you had the right. _That_ is the root of all evil._

"I knew it wouldn't only be volunteers made into golems. It would be the Casteless - political prisoners - Bhelen's enemies..."

"And are all your Wardens volunteers?"

_Jowan..._

"I...believe in life above culture. I believe that life can adapt anywhere and - though it might bear no resemblance to that which spawned it - it is the life and the living that matters."

_The Architect would say the same..._

"But our souls live on in the bones of our ancestors, nestled for all time within the stone our cities are built upon - the cities that, thanks to you, will lie forever in darkness and filth. Our children's children will live in exile, unsouled, unmourned, with nothing to bequeath to the next generation."

"I begin to see," Rilian said softly - with the sense she was touching something as sacred as the Vhenadahl or the Qun or the Templars' Sacrament - "why your people are such great builders."

"Yes: building is worship to us - quite literally. It is our history and our future - our immortality."

Rilian could not rid herself of the strange conviction that this was a peer: one who might have stood where she was, held the fate of Ferelden in her hands, had chance not decided otherwise. She felt an ache of regret for a dream that would never be born - along with a slight whisper of relief, sighing through her like the shiver of wind around old stone.

"We all fight the darkness through the prism of our own beliefs. You are a builder: hence golems. I am an Elf: hence a medical cure for the taint."

"You have such a cure?"

"I'm - working on it," Rilian admitted.

"Perhaps," Sarela mused, "Your way might be as valid as mine - if you have the vision and the ability to back it up. Time will tell - but we do not have much left."

_Less than you think. The Architect has these things too, and _he_ never sleeps..._

Rilian was not entirely surprised when both Rylock and Wynne sought her out, independently of each other. Both volunteered to take her place against the Archdemon. Rilian wanted to cry - but shot down the offers as quickly and baldly as she could. Rylock would survive the Joining because she had survived Blight sickness - but Rilian needed her to command the Templars. Wynne would likely not even survive Avernus' potion. Nonetheless, Rilian felt steadier, happier, less alone when they had left.

And - at the very last minute - she found herself facing one more recruit. Oghren collared her just as she headed toward the ruined courtyard outside the temple. His red beard made a splash of colour against the snow and stone, bristling in all directions.

"Thought I'd try my hand at becoming a bona-fide Grey Warden!"

Rilian blinked. "You understand the risks, right?"

"I piss on risk! It looks like _you _could use the extra hands."

Rilian sighed. "Alright," she agreed slowly.

"Good," Oghren said stoutly, "Like the old saying goes: nothing settles the stomach like the taste of darkspawn blood."

"I must've missed that one," Rilian muttered.

Oghren met her gaze, a surprisingly keen look in his brilliant green eyes - normally cloudy with ale. "You're looking a bit green around the gills, yourself. Tunnels don't agree with you, I take it?"

So - he'd heard about her encounter with the Architect. Something, anyway. "No," she said curtly.

He nodded expectantly, inviting the tale. When that yielded no result, he leaned forward and pointedly waggled his eyebrows.

With a sigh, Rilian capitulated. She told it as quickly and baldly as she could. Oghren was not one for subtleties.

"Hard thing - especially on a kid your age," he muttered darkly.

"I'm twenty!" Rilian told him indignantly.

"Like I said."

They sat in silence for a few moments. Rilian caught Oghren looking in the direction of his belt, and tracked his gaze down to his wineskin. He untied the string and handed it to her. She took a long, fortifying swig - and instantly coughed it up again. Oghren thumped her on the back.

"And after all that, you're going back down there. A good thing it is, to know the measure of your friends."

Their eyes linked in understanding. Rilian's long, fragile Elven fingers entwined with his stubby digits. They walked together, reaching the courtyard, facing what was to come. Rilian gazed up at a cloud castle floating gently past, at the sun like a burning red orb, and gathered herself.

* * *

The courtyard outside the old temple was blanketed in snow, and the brooding stone columns seemed to hold up the blank, milky sky. Rilian could hear the faint sounds of camp from beyond, but they seemed curiously unimportant: as if she and the ten recruits existed inside a bubble. Avernus and Riordan flanked her - and they summoned the ghosts of Alistair and Duncan…

…_I will not lie; we Wardens pay a heavy price to become what we are…_

…_We're going to drink the blood of those - creatures?!..._

…_Alistair, if you would…_

Rilian had gone over the creation of both versions of the mixture several times, supervised by Riordan and Avernus. Her tattered journal was riddled with notes. She turned to the Blood Mage:

"You said this works on those of us who have already Joined, right? Then I'll test it myself."

"Allow me," Riordan offered gallantly, "My death would not be such a loss; the taint will not spare me much longer."

He took the chalice from Avernus' claw-like hands, drank, and handed it back. He didn't even lose consciousness.

"It's strange. I don't know what the difference is…but I feel renewed, somehow."

Rilian stepped forward. Avernus extended his hands.

Rilian's mind exploded into fragments of memory…

…_The offered cup might kill her. Arguments for living or dying raged…_

…_Nelaros was dead. Because Vaughan had wanted a night of pleasure…_

…_Vaughan's agonized screams when she…_

…_Rilian Tabris. Cyrion's daughter. Murderer…_

Rilian took the few remaining steps toward Avernus with a feeling of risk that neared ecstasy. She took the chalice - drank deep…

Life thrilled in her veins; hot as molten gold. In the shadow of death, she lived. Her senses were sharper; her mind clearer. She looked around, and found colour in clouds and snow. It was as if she were seeing the world through one layer removed. She had never realized before how much the taint had seeped into her consciousness, stealing colour and warmth and life. She felt like an invalid feeling the sun on her face for the first time in years.

She turned toward her recruits, proffered them the new formula. "Jowan - it's time."

Jowan took a step back. His face seemed in constant motion. "I'm not a battle mage," he burbled, "Ser Otto killed those four darkspawn on the hill, not me. I'd be of no use…"

"I don't need a battle mage. I need a researcher. You'll be snug in your own laboratory, studying." Rilian's tone barely missed being contemptuous.

"I haven't been given a choice. Why am I the only one not given a choice?"

As if by magic, Rilian felt the panes of her face shift, morph and harden into new alignments. Her mind took on the blank implacability of Dragonbone. Her voice took on a heavy, resonant timbre. She recognized the tone she had used against the Architect with chilling fingers of memory.

"You made the choice the day you dealt with a demon. There is no other place on Thedas for a Blood Mage. The chalice or the sword. _There is no turning back_."

She was sickened to realize Avernus was looking at her with approval gleaming in his black, spider's eyes.

Ser Otto stepped forward, put a hand on Jowan's shoulder. "You can do this," he said quietly, "You faced your demons in Redcliffe Castle - took your own personal Harrowing. You have it within you to be a Warden - I know you do."

Despite his grief, he had not closed his heart to a fellow mortal creature. Rilian felt even more deeply her shame.

Jowan took the cup with trembling hands, whispered, "Lily," then drank. Ser Otto caught him as he fell, eased him to the ground. Rilian knelt over him, listened to his tremulous, shallow breathing. Only when she was sure he would survive did she rise and pass the cup to the next.

Sigrun and Sarela were as brave and matter-of-fact as Rilian had expected. Both survived. Alim looked as though he might hesitate - then a dark cloud twisted his face, making him old and ugly.

"For my father." He drank - and he, too, lived. As did Carver and Captain Vallen.

Oghren stepped forward. "Hand me the giant cup. I'll gargle and spit."

"You're not allowed to spit."

"Heh heh heh. That's what I always say."

Rilian felt a hysterical giggle clawing the back of her throat. She choked it back.

Oghren didn't even lose consciousness. White eyes raised to the sky, he simply remarked, "Hmm. Not bad," and smacked his lips.

Rilian was feeling positively buoyant as she passed the cup to the final two: Rowland and Mhairi. Rowland took the cup bravely, drank deeply. He arched his back, cried out in agony, and fell, thrashing. But he lived.

Mhairi did not. Rilian knelt by the still form in a stunned emptiness, unable to believe it. She felt for a pulse, tried to breathe life back into the frozen, pain-twisted lips. A sound scratched at her mind: the heavy breath of robes swishing on snow. A shadow loomed over her.

Rilian rounded on Avernus. "You said your mixture was safe!"

"What an infantile statement," Avernus remarked coldly, "One death in ten is a vast improvement."

Rilian shuddered, hating him. But he was right. It was just that…she could see how much work there was to be done before his mixture could become a cure. They could not decimate a population.

_What if I gave them my blood, mixed with lyrium? It worked on Loghain and Rylock. But how do I know it wasn't also because Loghain had been exposed before, and Rylock's blood altered by lyrium? I'll need to put by samples of my blood, for the soldiers, even so. If only we could get our hands on the Architect's research!_

Ser Otto knelt down and very gently closed the young woman's eyes. "_Here lies the abyss, the well of all souls, from whose emerald waters doth life begin anew. Come to me, my child, and I shall embrace you. In my arms lies eternity_."

His other hand reached outward, inviting the cup. Rilian took an involuntary step back.

"No, no! Not you too…"

But his hand closed about her wrist and his grip was tender but firm. Her own shaking nearly spilled the mixture to the ground as she handed it to him. Ser Otto drank deeply, closed his eyes, and sank back. There was hardly any change between the milky eyes and the white, and his expression was the peacefulest she had seen. He lived.

Avernus knelt down beside them, something like triumph gleaming in his pitch-black gaze.

"Warden-Commander: you have given meaning to our failed rebellion and two hundred years of imprisonment. All my victims died so you could have this, and make of it what you will."

He sighed, eyes closing, an oddly peaceful look on his decaying face. When he crumpled, it reminded Rilian of the collapsing sacks in the Tower: there was nothing left but dust and cloth. The old man surrendered his life as he had surrendered his knowledge, passing the torch to the next generation.

Rilian sank down onto the stone, not caring that the snow wetted trousers and boots. She drew her knees up to her chest and folded her arms across them, resting her chin on her hands. So much death; so much work… Arranging the funerals of Avernus and poor Mhairi felt like more than she could bear.

The heavy thudding of iron-shod boots interrupted her despair. "Eh, Orlesian - how about we get those poor sods inside; try to make them decent-looking. Won't help much with the mage, but…"

"I agree." The weary, musical Orlesian voice floated over her head. Rilian watched Oghren and Riordan carry the bodies inside the temple with inexpressible gratitude. She followed them into the cool darkness. The sun was too low in the sky to reach inside, and with the candles snuffed out it was no more than a mausoleum.

"I shall speak to Loghain and Channon," she said dully, "and make the arrangements."

"I'll go," Oghren offered, "You stay with your Wardens."

Rilian wrapped her arms around him and kissed his bristly cheek. His mingled smell of sour ale, rank sweat and dried blood was familiar and comforting.

"What's this? A peck on the cheek? You my sister or something?"

Rilian managed a smile. She rolled her eyes in mock exasperation and then, posing: "Recover from the Joining, I'll come back and give you one of those on the lips. I do you one of my late-night-specials while you're in this shape, you are dead. All that darkspawn blood comes steaming out of your ears in one big hiss. Bye bye Oghren."

"Heh heh heh." Oghren took a long, satisfying swig of his wineskin and strode away, boots making slushy lakes in the pristine snow.

Riordan smiled at her. Bared teeth gleamed white in the darkness. His movements seemed swifter since he had drunk the mixture; freed from the pain and weakness that were the after-effects of Loghain's torture.

"I must be leaving too. The movement of armies will not wait for one old man."

"Isn't it dangerous? What if the darkspawn sense you?"

"Alistair's armies are marching east, driving the horde along the path of the Frostback River. I shall head north and then west, curving around. Is there any message you wish to send?"

"Thank you," Rilian whispered. She searched among the eerily disorderly jumble of her laboratory - shards of glinting glass and pools of darkness like solid spheres of night - until she found her backpack. She pulled out a sealed letter and gave it to him.

Riordan took a long, silent look around. "Walk with me," he said. She followed him to the archway. Tendrils of snow seeped inside, like the fingers of some high, pale, remote god who sought to clean away the mess of humanity.

"You have told me of this…creature, the Architect. You have told me of the fate of Warden-Commander Duncan." His breath hitched slightly; but when she looked at him his face was expressionless, his dark eyes hooded. "And you are right: the Wardens of Thedas must unite, must put aside politics. But this…" He waved a hand in the direction of the laboratory: an elegant reflex that carried the absent-minded grace of his culture. "Is this wise?"

"I believe so." Rilian tried to keep the angry defensiveness form her voice. "What I don't understand is how Weisshaupt had four-hundred years after the battle of Ayesleigh and never discovered this! Four-hundred years of fighting darkspawn - of sending men to die, and be transformed, and begin the cycle again! Darkspawn are like rats: we'll never get them all. The only way is to inoculate humanity. If we could find the remaining Old Gods and inoculate them, we'd have no more Blights."

"Was that not the plan of the Architect? Instead he ended up tainting the Old God. The risk is simply too great."

"We have no time to weigh the risks. If the Architect makes more of these Children we could be overrun in a generation. Less. I feel his transformation of Wardens into darkspawn is the key. It was Duncan who made the…the Mother into what she was, not the Architect. If he had done it she'd be like any other Broodmother. There's something lost in darkspawn males that Duncan still had: the ability for his offspring to breed true. For the Mother's Children to become Broodmothers also. That's why we can't have any more Wardens taking their Calling. That's why we need to cure the taint. A military solution will buy us time. You must lead the Wardens of Montsimmard. Knight Commander Rylock will lead the Templars."

"I would prefer it if you led the Wardens and I faced Urthemiel. You are young; you have your life ahead of you."

Rilian shook her head, quickly. "The Wardens of Montsimmard wouldn't listen to me."

"Nonetheless…if we were to enter the Deep Roads from an entrance in the Dales, perhaps we could reach the Archdemon together."

Rilian stared down at the featureless ocean of snow, her boot making little ripples. She drew an hourglass with the tip of her toe. "I will get there first," she said softly, without looking up, "And…I can't bear to hope. Foolish: a waste of time and energy and life. I can't let myself - not even for a moment - else I'll never be able to do what I have to."

"It warms my heart to see such courage…sister."

He shook her hand - her friend and equal now - his grip cool and firm. Then he turned and walked away; a black shadow against silver.

Rilian sat down, keeping silent watch beside her eight unconscious Wardens, her mind full of her research. She could hardly wait for Jowan to begin. When the young mage stirred, cried out, and rolled over, mewling, she went to him eagerly.

"Jowan, you survived! This is wonderful! We have so much work…"

Jowan paled, clutched his stomach and mumbled, "Feel as if I'm going to…" Then he staggered to his feet and made a run for his tent.

_What did you expect?_ Rilian cursed herself for her own terrible bedside manner. Had she forgotten everything about her own Joining?!

Next to wake was Ser Otto. Rilian half-wondered whether it was the lyrium in their systems that made the mage and Templar the next to recover. Oghren had been first - but he was a devotee of Aqua Magus, which was said to kill even seasoned lyrium addicts!

Rilian sat beside her friend. "Did you have dreams?" she asked softly, "I had terrible dreams after my Joining."

Ser Otto's beautiful, scarred face was sombre, shadowed. "I thought…perhaps…I might dream of her."

Rilian felt a lump like a huge ball of grief catch in her throat, allowing no words to pass. She choked out: "The Architect made her incapable of hearing the Song. He didn't even leave her that. Not even that."

In spite of herself she put her head against Ser Otto's shoulder and lay still while the knight gently moved the hair from where it was sweat-pressed to her face. Rilian knew this was a terrible surrender - even now she felt a little compartment of herself filling up with shame. She was the Warden-Commander - she could not indulge. But she couldn't help it - she'd known him too long and been too close, and she was just too damn tired to put up a front. Ser Otto's quiet, salving gentleness, the scents of leather and steel and lyrium, the clean, cool smell of his skin, were irresistible. She pressed her face against the taut muscles of his shoulder, feeling the sweat cooling on her own skin, hearing herself whispering, "Sorry…sorry…sorry…" Ser Otto sat and rocked her, very gently, back and forth, his arm around her back.

Very gradually, Rilian eased herself away. She held his hand instead.

"Knight Commander Rylock came to see me," he said, very quietly, "She told me something Boann had once said to her: that the very worst thing that could ever happen to us would be to prove unworthy of the Maker. That anything else is just hard - and hard things can always be endured. Rylock believes it. I am not sure, now. What happened to Boann seems to prove that there are griefs beyond even the Maker's embrace - that suffering can be pointless and do no-one any good."

"I think Rylock is right," Rilian whispered, "Because when we give Boann the mercy of death her soul will rise to Him untouched. Guiltless. The only shadows we take with us are our own deeds - not what was done to us. She will go to Him as if she had sloughed off a defiled, wet, clinging garment, and He will take her in His arms."

"Thank you, Rilian." Ser Otto kissed her forehead. "Do you remember how you refused to sing after your mother died?"

Rilian managed a tremulous smile. "I do. You told me I should sing - because she would have liked to hear me."

Memories danced through her mind; colourful and radiant as the iridescence of light on water. The scrawny Elf and the wounded Templar, sitting underneath the Vhenadahl, singing together. The sideways looks and tutting of her neighbours mattered not at all - they existed in a garden of dreams, a living fragment of the Golden City, perfectly belonging.

The shared memory leapt between them without need for words. Ser Otto's deep, resonant baritone melded with Rilian's contralto as they raised their voices to the evening sky, drenched with rose and gold:

_Oh, oh deep water_

_Black, and cold like the night_

_I stand with arms wide open_

_I've run a twisted mile_

_I'm a stranger_

_In the eyes of the Maker_

_I could not see, for the fog in my eyes_

_I could not feel, for the fear in my life_

_When from across the great divide_

_In the distance - I saw light_

_Andraste, walking to me with the Maker…_

Together, sharing heartache, sharing love, they sang together until the first of the other Wardens stirred fitfully. Ser Otto comforted Rowland - the young knight devastated by his comrade's death. The Templar's steps seemed firmer, his shoulders steadier…his purpose sure again.

Rilian delivered a short speech, welcoming the survivors to the Wardens and explaining their role in the coming battle. She told them everything but the last, greatest secret - the reason only a Warden could kill an Archdemon. She was afraid Ser Otto or Oghren would volunteer to take her place - afraid of her own weakness, her yearning to have the bitter cup taken from her lips, to have another drink it. That had to remain a secret until the end. She shored up her own courage by refusing to dwell on it. When death came, she wanted it to be quick - a small step into the Beyond - like the transition from dreaming to waking.

They held Mhairi and Avernus' funeral rites as the sun dropped below the horizon, and every one of Loghain's knights and the new Wardens attended. Rilian was exhausted by the time she returned to her tent. Ravenous was gone; being spoiled by Cyrion.

She found she did not mind when Wynne followed her. Wynne had been like a mother hen with a chick ever since her capture at Ostagar. She smiled. It was nice to be pampered - nice to feel like a little girl again, if only for a moment.

"That was beautiful," Wynne said quietly, "Now that poor young woman is at peace."

Rilian said: "I will bring peace to Boann - to Duncan - to Urthemiel himself. Come in…I have something to show you."

Wynne followed her into the shadows of her richly appointed tent. Candlelight fell upon soft drapes and a mess of cushions - upon the mahogany chest at the foot of Rilian's bed. Rilian lifted the lid - showed Wynne what lay inside. "This is the peace I will bring."

Wynne gasped. "That's Cailan's sword! When - how - where did you find this?"

"Among the ruins at Ostagar when we prepared the pyre. Loghain never saw me. I think the darkspawn couldn't touch it."

Her back to the tent flap, protected from all sides, Rilian pulled the blade from its scabbard and showed it to Wynne. Polished, honed, the runes played with light as a child plays with fire. Without being aware of it she bent her shoulders forward, as if she'd draw herself around the weapon in a protective circle of her own flesh.

It was only when she turned to look at Wynne's reaction that she became aware of her misgivings. There was no discernible change in Wynne's face or voice, but she sensed a confusion and resistance in her, as if she'd seen something repellent but couldn't bring herself to turn away from it. It made no sense: there was nothing to see but the rich beauty of the sword - yet Rilian couldn't let go of the feeling that something had disturbed Wynne deeply.

Wynne said: "Shouldn't you tell Loghain?"

"Why? Why should I let it become a symbol, to be fought over between Loghain and Nathaniel Howe and Channon Cousland? Or hang in the Landsmeet Chamber to be gawked at by the Banns? I think Cailan was saving this sword for the Archdemon. I will do what he intended."

A pair of light quick footsteps interrupted their conversation. Rilian quickly replaced the sword, trusting Wynne to tell no-one.

It was Morrigan: dark, beautiful, feral. "Do not be alarmed. Tis only I."

_Song inspirations were:_

_Alistair, Eamon, Isolde: Professor Green ft Emeli Sande - Read All About It_

_Rilian: Cold Specks - All Flesh Is Grass_

_Avernus: The Cure - Lullaby_

_The Joining: Killing Joke - Love Like Blood_

_Rilian and Ser Otto: Daniel Lanois - The Maker_

_AN: Rilian and Ser Otto's song is adapted from "The Maker" by Daniel Lanois. It's my favourite off the album "Acadie" and has inspired more than one scene in DATM._

_Does anyone else notice that the position of Redcliffe on the game map (south of Lake Calenhad) differs from its position in the map for the books (west of Lake Calenhad)? I've placed it to the west, near Sulcher's Pass, as Arl Eamon's influence is supposed to be based on guarding Gherlen's Pass and the route to Orzammar. That's how come Riordan is able to sail across the lake to avoid the horde to the south._

_Channon Cousland's back-story was inspired by Arsinoe's plot mabari "Cousland PC escapes and raises the Teynrir against Arl Howe". Likewise the idea that the Deep Roads connect nearly all the major locations in Amaranthine. The idea of him and his ragtag group holing up in Soldier's Peak was planted in my head after watching episode 13 of Merlin, Season 3 (yes, I have outed myself as a Merlin fan!) It made no sense to me that Avernus doesn't know in canon that there is a Blight until you tell him - why couldn't he sense the Archdemon, as Duncan did? So in my version he follows Channon to Ostagar on his own initiative, after Channon helps him against the demons._

_Alim Surana's situation was also inspired by Arsinoe: her theory on magic being a sliding scale. He has just enough to rouse the interest of the Templars but not enough to really cut it as a mage. He uses it to improve his archery instead - he's essentially the Arcane Archer class from Neverwinter Nights :)_

_I see no reason why Dworkin couldn't stumble on the formula for Gaatlok independently. My guess is that his bombs in Awakenings use sulphur, charcoal, and lyrium sand. He swaps lyrium sand for Salis Petrae (saltpeter) and voila!_

_To those who think making saltpeter (potassium nitrate) out of horse shit is me having a laugh - it's actually true, and found under the "french method" of making saltpeter in Wikipedia. Niter-beds are prepared by mixing manure with wood ashes, earth and straw to make a compost pile. This is kept undercover, moistened with urine, turned often, and finally leached with water to make calcium nitrate. Calcium nitrate is converted to potassium nitrate by the filtering through of potash from wood ashes. I did use poetic licence to speed things up (the process is supposed to take up to a year) but I decided there's no limit to what Dworkin can do with his mad skillz :) The thought of the Templar horses Loghain condemns as useless mouths being responsible for the breakthrough was just too good to leave out!_

_It may even be possible that Orzammar already knew of the idea, but suppressed it - much as the Chinese did - knowing that such an invention would be unsafe in a city below ground. They would not want the casteless getting their hands on it, upsetting the status quo. It seems likely to me that Dworkin will find himself dodging Dwarven assassins as well as Qunari..._


	22. Chapter 22: The Seed And The Sower

_Dreams are the seedlings of realities._

James Allen

"Might I have a word away from the ears of this meddlesome old woman?"

Rilian frowned at Morrigan's choice of words. Memories poured through her mind like beads on a golden necklace that was slipping through her fingers: Wynne beside her at Ostagar..._I love you. You're my daughter_... She glared at Morrigan and said pointedly: "There's nothing you can't say in front of Wynne. Wynne has my complete trust."

Morrigan's voice came out a semi-tone higher...but Rilian sensed an odd nervousness behind the querulousness. Morrigan twitched like a cat; she gave the impression of suppressed energy; intense focus. Her scant clothing - light as ghost-rags; strong as steel - fluttered in the snow, wraith-like. How could she be dressed like this, in the snow! But the Witch of the Wilds did not seem cold. She gave off heat, like a banked furnace.

Wynne gave Morrigan a smile sharp as a wasp's sting. "It's alright, Rilian - no doubt this young lady is simply embarrassed to speak of personal matters in front of her elders. I'll go find Jowan: that young man needs careful guidance if he is to be a Warden..."

Unseen by Wynne, Morrigan rolled her eyes.

"What's on your mind?" Rilian asked.

"I would like you to take me with you when you face the Archdemon."

Nothing Morrigan had said could have shaken Rilian so profoundly. She and Morrigan had forged a strange sisterhood - a sisterhood tested by the rumours Alistair had gone to her for comfort after Rilian betrayed him at the Landsmeet - but reforged and remade. Rilian had risked herself and her party to save Morrigan from Flemeth's spiritual annihilation - and in return Morrigan had confided things she'd never said to anyone. About herself: her tentative friendship, her doubts and hopes. Rilian was absurdly touched that Morrigan should make this offer. _I have underestimated her - she really is my friend..._

Aloud, she said: "I appreciate that. Truly. But I can't take you with me. Loghain and the army rely on you too much. No-one else has your command of offensive spells."

Morrigan preened at the evidence of her indispensability - but only briefly. She then set her jaw in a disturbingly familiar mulish expression and said:

"Nonetheless - I go where I choose. And I choose to go with you."

Rilian drew herself up to her full height - still several inches shorter than the devastatingly beautiful woman - and bristled:

"Last time I checked, _I _was the Warden-Commander here."

"Tis a matter of survival. Yours. I must go with you."

A chill slithered down Rilian's back. Survival? Did Morrigan know more about what awaited her than she had suspected? What was she saying - that she hoped to _save _Rilian?

"I assure you I am in no more danger than anyone else." Rilian was a good liar exactly because she half-believed her own stories. For a fleeting moment, she almost convinced herself.

"You may be able to fool your Wardens but not I. I know what happens when the Archdemon is slain. I know a Warden must die. I have come to tell you that this does not need to be. If I come with you I can save you."

Hope thrilled in Rilian's veins: wild and sweet as honey. Her careful defences were blown apart in an instant. Morrigan could save her with magic! She opened her mouth to say yes...and the ghost of Loghain's voice came back to haunt her. She had said she had faith in Dworkin's Blackpowder - right before nearly blowing herself and Nathaniel up...

_"Warden: in war __having "faith" is not enough. Depend on skill, drill, strength, endurance, tactics: what you know, what's been demonstrated. No matter how tempting an idea, you cannot simply take a gamble in war and hope for the best. Blind trust will not defeat a Blight."_

"That sounds…wonderful…" she said slowly.

Morrigan's ochre-gold eyes burned with feral eagerness.

"…but you must tell me how. Tell me everything."

"I doubt you would understand."

Rilian flared. "You and Avernus! What _is_ it with you mages?! I may not be able to blow things up with my mind but that doesn't mean my arms drag on the ground when I walk! Do tell - you won't have to use small words, I promise." She glared at Morrigan.

"Tis not your intelligence I doubt, Warden, merely your ability to make hard choices. You had the chance to save Orzammar - but your delicacy got in the way."

Rilian frowned, not liking where this was going. "So how exactly would saving me from the Archdemon offend my delicate sensibilities? It's Blood Magic, isn't it?"

"Not blood. _Life._ A Ritual, performed in the dead of night."

Rilian thought of the Dalish nature magic. _The food-giver is stronger. The blood-giver is stronger. The Mother is stronger._

"Nothing comes without a price."

"Perhaps - but that price need not be so unbearable - especially when there is much to be gained. The Ritual involves a union between man and woman, Warden and non-Warden. It allows me to conceive a child. That child will bear the taint. At this early stage, the soul of the child can absorb that of the Archdemon - and not perish. Think on it, Warden," and here the luster of those alien eyes was like the devouring gold eyes of a tiger, "A child born with the soul of an Old God."

"Will the child be hurt?"

Rilian thought of First Enchanter Irving - and how he had lied when answering this question about Jowan's fate. He had claimed that being made Tranquil would not hurt Jowan. _No pain. But everything he was would be lost._

"Ignoring the fact that at this stage it could barely be called a child - no, it will not be hurt. It will be changed."

"_Changed_," breathed Rilian, sickened, "You mean annihilated. An empty vessel for another - as your own mother planned to do to you."

She could see the words go through Morrigan like a spear - see her regret confiding in Rilian, regret that she owed her. Morrigan's voice went soft and cold with malice.

"What is this obsession with children, Warden? Is it because you are unable to bear any of your own?"

"It could be," said Rilian, in a hysterical sob of laughter and grief, "It could be that my ability to do my duty comes down to something as banal as that! It's true what they say of us Elves: we're primitives. For it _would_ be a failure of duty. How do you know your golden child won't be tainted again? To take the risk of another Blight starting in less than a generation purely to save my own skin would be the most selfish evil I could commit. All the work - the sacrifices of Garahel and all the others - Sten, Ser Perth - how _dare _you tempt me into making it all worthless!"

Rilian stared at Morrigan, and felt the hysterical rage and laughter claim her. "Not to mention turning whore-master between my friends! Who would you have wanted me to get: Jowan, Ser Otto? Oghren?" _Oghren would probably do it..._

A strange light turned Morrigan's eyes from flat discs to pools of gold. "Tis already done. The seed has been planted."

Rilian stared...stared...and understood. Morrigan. Alistair. The rumours. The rumours he had gone to her after the Landsmeet. She felt the ground start to shift from under her; the pain cleaved her in two. She's lying, Rilian thought desperately. But she knew with despairing certainty that - although Morrigan might lie when she chose - she was not lying now.

Rilian staggered and nearly fell. Only the grim determination to show no weakness before this shem woman kept her on her feet.

Morrigan looked - almost vulnerable. "He did it for you. _I _did it for you. We've gone through so much together. Why must we lose now?"

Rilian stared through her, abstracted. "Dying is not the same as losing," she said distantly, "What we were meant to do, we did. What we were meant to be, we became."

As if the words broke some barrier, the unbearable image flooded in: of Morrigan together with Alistair.

_She's seen - touched - where I haven't. He...he gave her a child!_

Rilian caught her breath - hardening her mettle in the blaze of rage it lit within her. (_Maker! Do all my moral choices have to come down to that_!)

"My answer is no," she said, voice grating like steel on stone.

"Do not let your pride condemn you! You refused to listen to my arguments when you destroyed the Anvil - you took the risk that Thedas might fall to the horde for its lack. Is this so different?"

Rilian thought of her own stance, borne of empathy, and Loghain's, born of devotion to duty. They had argued over her decision, but she had been able to hold her head up. Even if her decision had been wrong, she had made it for the best reasons.

_But this would be mere cowardice - a desperate grasping for life. Loghain would despise it; _I_ would despise it._

_Alistair will too - once he realises what he's done..._

An iron curtain came down in Rilian's mind. She could not bear to think of Alistair now.

"You have my answer. And _you _should ask yourself the question: why are you still allowing the Witch to control you? What could you possibly gain from carrying such a child? Where do you think the taint might go? Do you think your plan to do this was your idea? It's Flemeth, you fool! Her voice, her will, her determination to save her species - _hers, not yours_ - by planting a cuckoo in a human nest. What should matter to you is that you never had a choice. You're a changeling, a property. Worse: your mind is the product of another's thoughts. You're a _thing_."

Rilian was so eager to hurt she practically salivated as the bitter, scorched, delicious words slipped off her tongue.

Storm-clouds gathered in Morrigan's eyes; within the swirl of compressed energy, Rilian felt the white storm of her magic building, building. She braced for the storm, almost welcomed it. Something in her seemed to rise to meet it - wrestle with it.

"_Not mine_?" Morrigan hissed. "_Are you sure_?"

Rilian gaped as the import became clear. She stared at Morrigan: the glittering alien eyes, the perfected face. _The face she wants to wear. _She had thought Morrigan a human changeling...a Chasind child abducted and raised by the dragon in human form. But, she realised, Morrigan had neither confirmed nor denied this.

She studied her: and saw a faint cast of Alistair in the golden eyes, the strong jaw, the angular lines of the face. Morrigan could be all ages: the cynicism of an old woman - the petulance of a child - the brilliance of a savant...but surely she could not be thirty? Perhaps she could. Her stark, uncompromising wildness, her social inexperience, could make her seem younger than her years. And a child of Flemeth might have a very different lifespan. Just what had transpired between Flemeth and King Maric in that hut - the meeting Loghain had been barred from?

She thought of Morrigan and Alistair together and the disgust threatened to choke her.

"And what shall I do with the brat now?" Morrigan asked with the plaintiveness of a child.

Rilian's awful laughter, high and wild, pealed out into the night. "It's a little late to be worrying about that, don't you think? You chose to do this - you can't complain that you're left holding the baby! I can't imagine why you thought I'd do it."

"Well - I think the Empress' court in Orlais will welcome the last heir to the Theirin bloodline."

Rilian was sickened: Morrigan selling the child for power one way or another. As Flemeth had done to her - as Arl Eamon had done to Alistair. Was history always going to repeat? What chance could such a child have? She would have raised it herself - if she were not doomed.

"Or maybe Alistair will come after me. Poor woman in a girl's body. The only child you'll ever give him is a child of mine."

A shriek of rage rent the night. The crack of Rilian's fist split the chill air like a curse. Morrigan was caught completely off-guard - her features hung slack for a moment. She stumbled - fell - her head hit the hard ground. Rilian's pain - her hate - her jealousy - stretched out cold on the stone. Rilian's hand flew to her mouth; her lips formed a circle of dismay. She knelt down - almost gentle - checked for injuries. What sickening irony - to protect Alistair's baby from the Archdemon, only to lose it now...

But mother and child were unharmed. Even as Rilian watched, the Witch's magic slowed the trickle of blood. Her eyelids fluttered open; her golden-eyed rage pure as poison.

Rilian was in the midst of a growing storm of feelings. Startling. At the same time, she was exhilarated. With each beat of her heart, she realised a transformation was taking place. Her mind worked with awesome clarity. Was it Avernus' potion - or simply the threat of Morrigan's magic?

_Images._

_Rylock always swings her left arm away from her body before lunging forward with her sword._

_Wynne always makes an imperceptible nod before imparting some word of advice._

_Morrigan always blinks twice after lying to me. She licks her lips before uttering words meant to hurt._

_Why now? What use are these observations?_

Strength. Will. Cunning.

Qualities, not sensations. Yet Rilian felt them within herself; thought this must be how the earth felt the stirring of seeds. Rilian, Warden, stood for life. Her enemy was death.

Once again, an image. Loghain. The feral look of him when he surrendered himself to the need to defend Ferelden. She saw him with eyes widened and jaw set. Thick muscles drew smooth, like steel bending. She felt his passion, his terrible fear and joyful exultation, as he fought for his country.

Rilian understood. The silent, dire challenge posed by Flemeth's dark goals broke her through all normal levels of comprehension. At risk were the humans, Dwarves, Elves and Qunari who would fall against the Architect and his species; Flemeth and hers. There could be no compromise. No mercy; no pity.

Rilian knew suffering and struggle; knew the magic that floods the heart of one who escapes maximum peril. This new sensation was different. This was embracing existence in a manner beyond the understanding of those who only fear death and never court it. The stakes soared immeasurably higher than life against life. The victor would decide the fate of a species. It was an overwhelming responsibility. Yet Rilian exulted. Her whole being sang glad, living anticipation.

_...Morrigan's face was terrified; haunted. Dark circles smudged the luminous pale skin beneath her eyes._

_"I cannot come with you to the Marsh. I do not know if I would be strong enough to resist Flemeth's acquisition."_

_Rilian put a hand on Morrigan's shoulder in silent token of how much that admission must have cost her..._

Morrigan: who met every challenge with cool determination and dark sarcastic wit. Rilian had found their strange friendship unexpectedly liberating. Leliana had taught her music and manners, Ser Otto and Wynne had taught her morals, Rylock and Boann had taught her faith - but it had been Morrigan who taught her to meet pain with gallows humour: an invaluable lesson for any soldier. Just as Rilian had taught her the social skills she had taken for granted: how to eat at a table - for how long to look into another's eyes. It had been a challenge to do this without the fiercely proud woman being aware of it. So hungry for friendship - so afraid of it...

_How can this be the same woman? _Is_ it the same woman? Could Flemeth's power have reached even across that distance, displacing my friend's soul and destroying her?_

Rilian faced her with the manner of the soldier - braced for a retaliation that never came. She was unexpectedly moved to see Morrigan hold herself back, struggle to control her instinct for primal self-preservation, to meet Rilian's strike with words instead of magic.

Rilian was ashamed. Cyrion had taught her better than to hit. Morrigan - who had been taught nothing of civilisation - had behaved better than she. For no-one else would Morrigan have made the effort - Rilian almost forgave her.

There was a shadow of regret in the lupine eyes. Rilian saw this was not Flemeth. Or at least - that Flemeth's annihilation of her daughter had been psychological, not magical.

_I wonder if any of us ever understood what her childhood was like? I know she's almost child-like in her ability to disguise pain with brisk, sarcastic wit. Morrigan could have found some excuse to go with me and I'd be none the wiser. She never lied. Was that honesty...or merely the wish to have me culpable too, as if - by her ability to prove corruption in others - she can be exempt from the moral challenge herself?_

"You helped me against my mother - would that I could have helped you. Die, then, if you feel it is worthwhile. Your fate is of your own making, not mine."

She turned - shimmered - became an enormous silver wolf whose rippling coat melded with the aching whiteness of the snow. She gave a keening howl - then loped away, claws making tracks in the powdery landscape. By the time she headed past the western gate, Rilian could no longer see her. She strained her eyes until no effort would gain her another glimpse.

* * *

Rilian turned away, headed toward her tent, yearning to wrap its shadows around her like a shroud. Somehow - she could not have said why - to have to speak or explain to anyone would have made it quite unbearable. Erratic shadows writhed and shifted as she drew open the tent flap and the candle fluttered. She sank down, cross-legged, by the chest; pale hands trembled as she opened the lock - drew out the blade...

_...Alistair pushed past her on her left side, sword held away from her, his greater strength forcing her off-balance. He advanced on Loghain. Her Dalish blade flashed as it leapt from its __scabbard. A red gash appeared along Alistair's palm. __Gasping, he stared at his hand as if he couldn't quite believe it. He clenched his fist; bright blood dripped onto the floor._

_"I said: _stand down_. It'll be the other hand next time; and I'll cut so that you never draw again."_

_Trembling, voice near to breaking, Alistair choked out: "I trusted you. I...believed in you. I would have married you, no matter what Eamon said. And for what?"_

_He turned on his heel and stumbled away...away from the Landsmeet...moving like a man who has something broken in his chest and has no idea what it is..._

She took a whetstone and sharpened the diamond-bright blade, looking up at her with eager glinting. Of all the make-ready exercises, it was the one that passed time the best. Circular strokes, one hand carefully holding the hilt, the other the stone. Hypnotic rhythm replaced thought. The tent echoed the thin song of edging steel. Its wordless melody sent cold feet dancing along the edge of her skin.

She held the blade to the light. Silverite gleamed with frenetic abandon - runes blazed along its edge - darkly glimmering as a priceless silver chalice containing poison. She stared into the light - toward the shadows that boiled within - conscious of the irony of being soothed by an act whose sole objective was lethal violence. She held up a piece of wood, sliced at it. The blade cut through effortlessly. She grasped the hilt like a nest of thorns, remembering Adaia..._right hand clenched in a fierce and solitary act of defiance_...sliced open her left palm. Bright blood dripped onto cloth. She felt all the death inside her - the poison of taint - screaming and cowering away; it knew its enemy.

_...The tides of her blood wavered and rippled, called by a will not her own. The swift-winged ship of her mind danced on a roiling ocean. Its sails were tattered; its hull leaking. The Song swelled from the wine-dark sea. She braced against the canted deck; clawed for a hand-hold. The sea rose to embrace her; cover her like a shroud..._

_...She was following the path of the blade, stretched out flat along the Archdemon's spine, her own blood dripping into the wound. She felt her musculature and skeleton fluidly rearranging themselves. It was wonderful, like discovering a lost immortality. She spread her wings, laughing..._

Rilian took the sword, left the tent, to practice. She could feel her fate approaching, rising like a rain-shadow behind her: a waveform with serrated edges that reared like towering wings. The craved emptying of consciousness - the miraculous draining of every ounce of self - so she could lose herself in the vast, redemptive, ruinous dark.

_...The wave sped towards her, swift as a shark, its inky depths black as open jaws. She did not flinch; did not flee, though she knew it would annihilate her when it crashed. She raised her sword high: a silver blade etched with bright runes. Against the engulfing dark, it glowed like the first rose of dawn. She realised - in a moment of soaring rapture - _I am not afraid...

She hung on the edge of herself - that instant, eternal plummet and soar between waking and sleeping. In another moment Rilian was gone, dissolved into the set of learned manouveres: nothing more than a collection of instincts, freed from memory, from fear, from grief. She practiced as the sun set, the moon turning the sky to a cool silver ocean. Waves of moonlight rippled, turning the snow to a pale timeless sea.

She came back to herself slowly. Her emotions - the pain of betrayal - her fear of dying - were a stormy ocean. But she was the ship - the captain at the helm. Though the waters might be choppy or calm, what mattered was how she navigated them...until at last, hopefully, she would end up on a good shore. The sea's far side...where the sky rolled back and everything turned to silver glass...silver as the chalice she sought - the sangreal - the cure for the taint.

Rilian realised that the person she was had nothing to do with what had been done to her: Alistair's betrayal, the Architect's black and unalterable conviction, Howe's cruelty, Vaughan's sickening lusts. The afterimages came like white birds pecking - like sly water through the cracks of her mind - but they were still only memories. She had been wrong to fear them so - wrong to fear that the black ocean of taint could swallow her. She was not defined by the taint, nor by shameful experience; instead, she was formed by dreams and hopes...by the teachings she had followed like a flickering trail…by the friends who had helped her along the way. She wasn't clay in the hands of others but steel in her own; by her own choices, she could forge the blade that she wanted to be.

This realization did not come through conscious thought but slowly, in the way the tainted land around Ostagar had been cleansed and renewed by the Dalish magic and covered by snow…until come spring, miraculously, the snow would be gone and everywhere would be tiny green leaves.

She practiced sword-forms for hours, weaving steel patterns against the silver snow and sky. While her pulse laboured and a slick of sweat oozed from her forehead, she thought she heard - beyond the comforting noises of camp - the distant call of the Song...too faint to be certain, and too intimate to be ignored.

* * *

Loghain hunched over his desk - staring at the maps spread like a giant's eye view of Ferelden - at the two missives overlaying them. One he had received before the Landsmeet - from the Wardens at Gherlen's Pass:

…_To the Regent of Ferelden._

_You have murdered the Empress's finest chevaliers at the border - the very reinforcements sent to aid you. In addition, you have tortured and imprisoned Warden-Commander Riordan. Neither the nation of Orlais nor the Order of the Grey will see these acts go unpunished. Due to your arrogance your land is already ravaged by the Blight. Now Ferelden will suffer for your crimes as well._

_Guillaume Caron,_

_Acting Warden-Commander of Montsimmard..._

Loghain found it strange that the Order had sent only one Warden - and sent him straight to Arl Howe. Or rather - not so strange, considering how much Orlais stood to gain by using the Wardens as allies against Ferelden.

The other missive was from Orlais itself - from no less than the Divine, Beatrix III. Riordan had received this at Redcliffe and carried it with him.

_...We have our differences, Loghain Mac Tir, but nothing that two practical people cannot overcome. I am advised by those sworn to destroy you: Grand Cleric Jocasta, Knight Divine Gerard Caron and a true daughter of the Chantry, the Empress. Weakness demands I concur. Unless you counter their arguments with an offer of your own - make restitution for allying with Blood Mages and Tevinter slavers. The Chantry must be one. It cannot be without its Ferelden arm. Do not force me to choose against you..._

It was clear the Divine - an elderly woman in her eightieth decade - was being pressured by her inner circle of close advisors - Grand Cleric Jocasta. Knight Divine Gerard Caron - and by the Empress herself. He snorted. _And they try to claim the Chantry is above politics... _None of that was unexpected. What troubled him was the accuracy of her information.

How could the Divine know - so quickly - of Uldred and that damned Tevinter, Caladrius? Of how he had snatched Jowan from Chantry "justice"? He had watched the ports and passes so closely, no Templar or cleric could have slipped through. Rylock would not have betrayed him like this. Her priority was the abomination that had happened to Revered Mother Boann - she would stop at nothing to see her friend at peace and the Architect and all its works destroyed. He did not trust the new Grand Cleric of Ferelden - Mother Leanna - as far as he could throw her, but she would not have had the opportunity.

_A bard could. A bard working from Denerim, travelling as a refugee. So many are taking ship from Denerim to the Free Marches...one more would not even be noticed..._

Loghain's instincts - his sense of his opponents - had rarely failed him. _Celene doesn't want to invade. Why go to the trouble of invading a Blighted country when she can remove one man - knowing that without its General she can win most of the Banns by necessity, ideals, or greed. Of course, if I _don't _give myself up the Chantry will have the perfect pretext for an Exalted March - which she, as a "true daughter", would have to support..._

_General Thiebaut Caron. Warden-Commander Guillaume Caron. Knight Divine Gerard Caron. I've had enough of that family to last a lifetime..._

He squinted over the maps - seeing the march of men, the battlefield divisions - pure and clear and precise as chess. The reality was far messier. His vision blurred; he absently wiped a sheen of sweat from the bone-hard gauntness of his brow. He had never felt quite well since his sickness at Ostagar. _The Warden's blood - was it a cure, or just a delay of the inevitable? How many years do I have anyway? It's possible Celene is bargaining for a dead man walking._

He faced Cauthrien, sitting opposite him. Dark smudges, bold and harsh, stood out along her pale face. Firelight emphasised her features: the broad, strong sweep of long cheekbones. Slightly knitted brows lent power to the smallest change of expression. Her gaze - sharp as a hawk's and full of shadows - studied his face with an intensity he found disturbing.

"Go and see Wynne," she demanded, "We need you. You need rest. You're no good to us sick."

Faces wavered in Loghain's mental vision. _Maric and Cailan looked at him, tilting their heads questioningly, faces filled with almost identical looks of uncomprehending anguish..._

He saw again, as if reliving it, that doomed War Council: golden Cailan with his talk of Wardens and Orlesian reinforcements; his own curt dismissal: _We must attend to reality..._

"Please," Cauthrien said, "At least tell me what you're working on."

Loghain stirred slowly, like a man waking. He handed her the letters. He spoke very deliberately. "Reality. I'm working on reality. I'll rest when I believe I've earned it. You say: no good to us sick. It's an open question whether I can be good to us at all."

Dark eyes seemed to retreat into shadow as she scanned the letters. She scoffed.

"Do you really think you're the reason they're invading now? They've been planning this for decades!"

"Undoubtedly. But if I'd allowed the "reinforcements" through, they'd have spent their own forces fighting the darkspawn, and we wouldn't have lost men at Ostagar, or in the Civil war that followed. We could have pushed them out, as we did once before. Now - we have neither the infrastructure nor the manpower to do so."

"You couldn't have known it was a Blight."

"Excuses don't alter facts. Besides: I should have known. Maric warned me a Blight was coming to Ferelden. I didn't believe him."

He saw Cauthrien's eyes widen at the revelation - and then in sudden fear. "That may be true," she acknowledged - and he could sense the blunt soldier's awareness of fairness and accountability warring against her loyalty, her determination to concede no weakness in him, "But you can't give yourself up - that will solve nothing; change nothing. Fereldens do not bow to Orlesian threats!"

Loghain spoke into the fire, consigning the words. "Riordan tells me Teyrn Fergus Cousland leads an army of Chasind, marching with the Bastard Prince. Channon Cousland is here, with the remnants of the Highever force. As is Nathaniel Howe. The North could dissolve into Civil War. Bann Sighard wants to kill me - you know why. The Chantry: after my dealings with Uldred, with Jowan, with Tevinter slavers...I am a wanted man. We cannot have the Chantry declare an Exalted March on Ferelden. Need I remind you we have an army of Templars already within our borders. Rylock and Knight Commander Greagoir would not - but Grand Cleric Leanna can easily replace them."

He raised his eyes; met those of the woman he had raised and trained: no less family to him than Anora.

"What if my punishment could persuade Sighard and Cousland to ally with Howe and Anora in a common cause? If Rylock can persuade the Divine to declare an Exalted March against the darkspawn - if Riordan can rally the Wardens - we have a fighting chance. My own mistakes must not become a stumbling block. If my death, exile or Joining can prevent it - I must do so."

Cauthrien leaned forward, jaw jutting. "Without you, the Bannorn will fall to Celene's blandishments and you know it! Was not the credo of the rebellion: _sooner dead than changed?_"

Loghain sounded like he choked. "Damn. Thank you. You did it again, didn't you. Made me answer the question I refused to ask myself."

Could he possibly follow the Warden's vision: her words that had burrowed into his brain, moved and saddened him...

_...Should I care that my descendants will have rounded ears and heavy bones? No more than Loghain should care whether his great-grandchildren speak Orlesian. The best part of us: the history, the honest purpose, the honour, goes on..._

No. He could not. He could not face a future in which his daughter might not have all that he had given her: heir to a heritage of proud Ferelden freeholders, beholden to none.

"There's a quote: "Victory has a thousand fathers; defeat's an orphan." After you've won tomorrow's battle for us, the people who want to use you will crawl out of the woodwork. They're cowards, Loghain. The ones who want to use others for personal gain."

There was so much more he wanted to tell her. How in her presence he always felt good about his cause. There was purpose, not just hatred. He didn't understand how she got inside his mind, wove his dreaming into different cloth. He studied her, intent, wishing he could ask.

Cauthrien smiled nervously under the scrutiny. "We all expect too much of you, put too many demands on you. Even me."

"That's not true. Look at what we've done here. We have the armies of the Bannorn working as a team. Other people tell me what I have to do. You help me do it. We make a good team."

Cauthrien reddened at the unaccustomed praise. At the last, he turned his head, pretending the words had no other significance.

"I need to think." He strode from the tent, toward the glimmer of white at the edge of the western gate.

Her saw the Warden practising sword-forms - her whip-thin, spring-steel body lithe and graceful; deadly movement transmuting gawkiness to radiance. He saw moonlight flash off a silver blade - gleaming as the Warden swung it through the wilds arcs of her practice: eyes measuring the distance of enemies who only existed in her head. Blue runes flared to life like the crackle of lyrium...

..._Maric turned from the crenellated wall from where he'd been staring out to sea. Water polished to the sheen of jade carried the ship waiting to take him north. Sails curled under a lazy breeze; waves were silver ribbons that came from nowhere, glittered and disappeared._

_"Do you know what I see? I see a path leading to freedom. I see a road, horizon to horizon, endless, that should carry trade in all directions."_

_Loghain held his silence; was waiting when Maric cut his eyes sheepishly in his direction: "You don't see that, do you?"_

_"Absolutely not!"_

_They chuckled then, appreciating each other; relishing the differences between them, enjoying the similarities. Maric drew his blade in one smooth motion and tossed it to Loghain. The pale arc winked like a jay in the pearly dawn. Loghain caught it with the precision of long practice._

_"Take care of my kingdom for me."..._

Loghain swirled with a mixture of reactions. It was, of course, satisfying to be proven right in one's initial assessment of someone; but another part of him - the part that had fought beside the Warden, taught her strategy, seen her throw Cailan's last letter on the pyre to protect Anora's feelings - knew a cold stab of disappointment. And the very sight of this armour-gilded wisp of a gutter rat clutching a blade forged for Dwarven Kings and wielded by Ferelden's rulers was distastefully out of place. "So," he said in disgust, "You scavenged Maric's Blade from the field at Ostagar - and hid it to keep to yourself…"

It never occurred to the Warden to explain - or back down. Caught behaving like all the worst stereotypes of Elves - venal, greedy, obsessed with acquisition and the wish to be better than they were - she attacked, masking embarrassment with sarcasm. "It isn't Maric's Blade - it's Cailan's. What makes you think he'd want _you _to wield it?" She bore down on the words in a small-minded swipe. "Cailan's Blade should go to his widow, not you. But Anora will carry it to show people - or hang it in the Landsmeet Chamber to be gawked at by the Banns. It should stay in hands that appreciate it - and can wield it."

Loghain's hand unconsciously dropped to the hilt of his plain Ferelden sword. _Then wield it now..._

He saw the face of a gutter-rat ready to defend some worthless back alley street from rivals - that indomitable quality of will that would see the body it drove broken apart rather than yield - the sheer bloody minded urge not to let a shem take anything from her _ever again_. He entertained thoughts of giving her the fight she wanted. But it was madness to duel on the eve of battle.

"Then wield it against the Archdemon," he said curtly, "It deserves nothing less."

"Oh, it shall slay the Archdemon," she assured him. And then, amber eyes bleak in her pale, pinched face, encircled by a ring of shadow, added: "Maybe you'll be able to scavenge it back."

Loghain realised she knew her own fate - had known for some time. His decision to keep the knowledge from her - because Ferelden could not afford for her to hesitate; because it was kinder to let her wink out as suddenly as a falling star, rather than worry her way to misery - was wasted. He ought to have seen that when she joked with Riordan, told him she would "say my piece while I can", or when she had promised not to die "before her time" and it went through him in a ripple of annoyance that this graceless little guttersnipe was speaking the truth – and meeting her duty unflinchingly. He admired it - in a way he had not her deeds in battle, her status as the "Hero of Redcliffe". He had seen bravery before, in the most unlikely places: the lowest troops of the rebel army, his Night Elves, had pulled Maric out of an Orlesian trap and died almost to a man. Mere Dragon-slaying was no braver than lightly armoured servants-turned-soldiers taking on armoured, mounted chevaliers - it took more than that to impress him.

"My first mission with the rebels was that of the sacrificial lamb," he told her, not quite sure where he was going with this - not sure, frankly, that he wanted to continue, "It was Queen Rowan who changed the rules and saved the most expendable troops in the army. But there will be no rescue for you. As Arl Rendorn Guerrin did, I must put Ferelden first." He recalled their conversation before Ostagar - her words to him: _bearing the weight of the dead…_ And he saw her among his pale battalions. Faceless men wavered in his mental vision. For a moment, he thought they beckoned. He blinked away the image.

"Oh - I had an offer of rescue from a very unlikely source," she said, young face twisting. Then, coolly, "But I judged the use of Morrigan's ancient magic to be - a tactical error."

"So you see: no matter how important you think you are, you didn't cause this mess." The Warden tossed his own words about the Anvil back at him with a playful smile. "I am not one of your dead; I _choose_ to do this."

It was pride talking – but it was also an odd kindness, removing one more burden from the weight of his dead. And cocky certainty: she had not even consulted him over her judgment of what constituted a "tactical error"! Her decisions were different to his: a younger, other self, forged in the flame of an idealism he had never possessed, but she stood alone on the bleak summit of leadership, and did not try to dodge any part of it. Part of him felt a little outraged to be left out of the loop after so many years of shouldering the hard choices, but here was a woman who would never do what Maric - even Rowan - had done: she would never run to him to make the decisions she could not. She made them. As Gareth Mac Tir had done, courting certain death to buy them time.

…_that's exactly what you will do. Your word, Loghain…_

The Warden had earned the same respect. It felt odd to be standing here, thinking that, but there it was. He was aware of the hand that held the sword: it looked small, next to his own, the Elven bones delicate as a hawk's; it was hard, sinewy, its fingers clenched around the hilt in a fierce and solitary act of will. She looked deeply at, and through him, including him in her solitude. She looked sharp as an arrow, and full of light. She stood - caught between life and death as between morning and night – but she kept hold of the sword, tossed it with an insolent flourish in the air and then back into her own scabbard, smiled crookedly and said:

"I am the Captain of my ship."

* * *

After the argument over Maric's Sword, Loghain would have preferred to avoid the Warden for the rest of the evening. Of course it was impossible. Tonight was the eve of battle: Loghain was all over Ostagar, checking and re-checking their defences. He had ordered the stockades built up and the abatis improved upon. Sacks of Dworkin's black powder adorned both these and the portable barriers Loghain's infantry took with them. The crews would light them and then withdraw - fortunately, Dworkin had improved upon his "four-second delay". The Tower nearest the Western Gate was now the Templar head-quarters - his own was in the Tower near Ishal. The Old Temple was a healing house: the Warden had put away her research and the area was stocked with bandages, healing potions, lyrium - and vials and vials of Warden blood. Rilian, Ser Otto, Oghren, Alim, Aveline, Carver and Rowland had all volunteered theirs. Wynne would make the same mixture she had used on him and Rylock to cure the tainted soldiers.

Light spilled out from the Chapel, gilding the gently falling snow with a golden sheen. Many soldiers were inside: Sister Leliana was performing a service. As the Warden was also making preparations, Loghain kept on running into her. The sight of the armour-gilded peacock strutting about with her battlefield pickings was extremely irritating. And clearly he wasn't the only one who entertained notions of using said blade to tan her backside. Eamon, Cousland and Howe were all looking jaundiced. Each wished to own such a powerful symbol, to mark their own ambitions for Ferelden's throne.

The strategist in Loghain knew the blade should have gone to Anora. The part of him that remembered Maric tossing the sword to him before making his doomed voyage yearned to wield it himself. It was a part of his friend unsullied by his own mistakes, or Loghain's - as bright and hopeful as the day Maric first found it, idealism blazing in his young face.

But the Warden glared so fiercely at any noble who showed too keen an interest - amber eyes glinting like those of a half-starved cat - that they were constrained.

Loghain relieved his feelings by heading over to the archery range. Though the sun had set, the light of a hundred torches melded to light the courtyard as brightly as day. It was pleasant to exist in this bubble of light, with the howling darkness kept at bay. Too bad the peace would not last.

The Warden had had the same idea. An archery competition had sprung up between the Dalish and his own Night Elves. The Warden had swapped her ill-gotten blade for a shortbow - apparently deciding that Dworkin's sighted crossbow gave her an unfair advantage. Her mabari stood by her side, his encouraging howls urging her on. Two second's observation showed him that the Warden's technique had not improved since their practice in the Brecilian forest. As she huffed and swore, her fierce young cousin - clearly in her element - detailed her flaws with great relish:

"No!" she cried in exaggerated anguish, covering her eyes with her hands, "Release the string _smoothly_, Ril. Don't pluck it like your lute. Let the bow lie in your hand. You don't have to crush it. You're shifting your feet like a swordsman - stand steady."

The Warden raised the shortbow - pulled back the draw-string - then loosed an arrow to its target: a borrowed Bannorn shield with a bull's-eye crudely painted on top. She groaned even as it left the bow. It arced up toward the heavens - confirming her nickname of "Cloudkiller" - and thudded into the ground exactly half-way to the target. Her mabari whined softly.

"Shit!"

"Oh dear, oh dear," said her cousin, "I haven't seen anything like that since...well, I can't remember. You're still plucking the string when you should just be letting go. You're also opening your mouth when you shoot and dropping your elbow before you loose."

"Alright, alright," the Warden mumbled defensively, "I've just got a few lazy habits, that's all."

Her cousin drew in a breath through her teeth as melodramatically as possible, pursed her lips judiciously, and pronounced, "I'm not sure it's as simple as "a few" lazy habits. Your tent looks like a market stall crossed with a garbage heap. Just an exterior mark of the state of your soul." The young woman raised her own bow. With a steady, fluid motion - as relaxed as a branch stirring in the breeze - she drew back, sighted down the shaft and let her fingers slip off the string.

The arrow winged in and struck the target dead-centre - to the whoops and applause of the watching Elves. As she could not have been practicing longer a than month, Loghain was impressed.

"There!" the young woman said with wicked glee, "Perfect. An outward sign of inward grace."

The Warden took after her - only to find herself in Loghain's sights as he stepped from the shadows, his own bow raised. An expression of startlement crossed her face - quickly melting into a look of mournful solemnity that did not quite conceal an underlying smirk.

"Don't shoot. I'll come quietly."

"Warden." The vinegar in Loghain's voice turned the words into an insult. He was aware of her cousin and the dark-braided young Dalish warrior, Cale, edging closer and bristling like ruffled cats. He contrived to face their bows with the unconcern of an iron golem. "I am - surprised to see you bothering with such a humble weapon. Surely you haven't grown tired of flaunting your prize already? Or has the collective disapproval of the Banns daunted you?"

In answer she drew Maric's Blade from its scabbard, spun it through a series of flourishes and sheathed it reverently, preening with the satisfaction of the cat who has got the cream.

"For the sake of a weapon such as this I will endure it," she said in a martyred tone. A brilliant cocky smile ruined the effect. "Besides - when did most of them _ever _approve of the Arl-Assassin-Of-The-Alienage; the Demon-Dockworker-Of-Denerim?"

A ripple of reluctant amusement warred with Loghain's ire.

"I take it _you've_ still got the arse with me too?"

After his years with the Night Elves, Loghain was familiar with the Alienage slang. He thought he caught a slightly plaintive note beneath the defiant east-Denerim accent - as though she cared more for his opinion than she was letting on.

"Warden: you are a venal, greedy little magpie. What do _you _think?"

The taut muscles of her Docker's shoulders slumped a little; the mobile, expressive face fell. But she refused to let the side down.

"Where I come from," she informed him, with stately dignity, "That'd be a compliment." She turned away, rejoining the Dalish, spring-steel stride not quite as bouncy as before. "Oh well. I'll miss our talks..."

"Don't drivel, Warden. Time's wasting. I need to speak with you. We'll open a bottle of whisky and you can tell me what it feels like being a venal, greedy little magpie. I also need to discuss your plan to take the Wardens and Legion to the Deep Roads while the B...while Warden Alistair and I command the double-envelopment on the surface."

The Warden turned and straightened up. She tried to stop the pleasure showing on her face but did not quite succeed.

"Before we close the lid on the subject and bury it, I want to tell you this: I don't like what you did. That's my piece said. Have you anything to add to it?"

"No."

"Very well. I'll forgive you your sword as you forgave me Rendon Howe." He proffered his hand and she shook it, her supple, sinewy strength surprising him. "You'll find a bottle of Highever's finest at the back of the map case in my tent."

* * *

Loghain and the Warden sat opposite each other in Loghain's tent: a space far smaller and plainer than the Warden's monstrosity, and shadowed. Candle flames wavered in the candelabras. Greasy coils of smoke swirled to the top of the tent, hanging in a noisome cloud. A rising wind moved the ceiling. Trapped smoke throbbed and boiled. It caught the candlelight in its depths, sometimes bright, sometimes dark. It had an aura of sentience.

The Warden's right hand rested on the head of the mabari, now curled at her feet. Her left absently stroked the thin scar across her cheekbone - legacy of the assault in Howe's dungeon. Loghain winced inwardly. No matter how composed her outward appearance, touching the scar was an incontrovertible proof of tension.

"Kardol tells me the tunnels beneath Ishal are certain to go on to the Deep Roads. They intersect at Ortan Thaig. While you and A - Warden Alistair trap the horde at Ostagar, I will take my Wardens here and the Legion and eliminate the Architect and all his works. My Wardens - led by my second, Ser Otto - will then return to you...carrying - I hope - details of the creature's research. This, combined with Avernus' mixture, could be the breakthrough we need. The Legion and I will go on to Ortan Thaig - and the Dead trenches..."

"Your allocation of your Wardens is not sound, Warden. Oh - you are right in sending Riordan to Gherlen's Pass. The Orlesian fools don't seem to realise the Dead Trenches lie beneath the Dales. Had we not stopped the horde here, the Archdemon would have followed the largest mass of darkspawn to Denerim. Now..." Loghain felt his face crease into a feral grin.

The Warden glared at him. "The Archdemon laying waste to Orlais would be no less a tragedy!" she flared - but Loghain went on as if she had not spoken.

"So - it is in the Orlesian Wardens' interests to enter the Trenches from the Dales, refuse this political alliance with the bitch, Celene, and aid you. In any case, the snows make it impossible for the chevaliers to cross the Pass till spring. Anora will prepare the defences along the Northern coastline. Voldrik's siege weapons will prove invaluable."

Loghain glanced up - caught the Warden's increased tension - she knew what he was going to say.

"But even if Riordan manages to convince Caron - they will not reach the Trenches at the same time as you. Sending all your Wardens back - ensuring you are the _only _Warden to face the Archdemon - that is not wise."

The Warden said, softly, "We only need one Warden to kill an Archdemon. What matters is that Ser Otto and the rest survive to work on the Cure."

She spoke of it in the way she spoke of the Ashes - a sacred search, a trust.

"The seed has been planted. My Wardens are the new beginning. They will complete my work - share the Cure without fear or favour, without national or political motives."

The words carried an edge. The Warden knew as well as he that attempting to spread a cure using the magic developed by Remille and the Tevinter slavers to spread their plagues was a dangerous proposition that could easily be perverted.

"Someone always demands to be the most equal. Can you be sure your scientific movement won't be usurped?"

"Yes, I can." The Warden's granite certainty filled the tent. "All of us - the Wardens at Ostagar - swore a blood oath. We will be what Wardens should be. We live as Wardens, free, or we die as Wardens, free forever. Simple, no?"

"Terrifying. If I'd known, I'd have forbidden any such oath. It's too dangerous." He leaned forward - put one hand on her wrist.

The Wardens red brows lifted like warning flags. "You'd forbid me?"

She had given up even her quest for Elven rights to be unbiased - she knew _he _could not have done the same. If finding the Cure gave him leverage over Orlais - worse, if the Tevinter magic could be perverted to a biological weapon...

_...There is nothing I would not do for my homeland..._

He had meant it. The Warden knew it. She had taken steps to ensure that, while Loghain could create his own Wardens to defend Ferelden, he could not get his hands on her research. Ser Otto had the protection of Rylock and the Chantry. He also - unlike any other Warden Rilian could have chosen - had their trust. They would not interfere.

Loghain removed his hand from her wrist, sank back. He studied her, a slight rueful smile quirking his lips. "Stepped right into that, didn't I? Very well - I'd have argued against it."

The Warden smiled - magnanimous in victory.

Loghain turned his attention to another matter. "Warden - it is you who should command Redcliffe's forces and Alistair who should enter the Dead Trenches."

The Warden reacted like a cat stepping on a burr.

"You just want to remove the threat to your daughter's throne! Politics does not make wise military choices."

"Neither does emotion. Your desire to protect Alistair is..."

The Warden opened her mouth - then clamped it shut. She turned away, breathing with slow, structured poise. He knew by the way she held herself that she was fighting her own fury. Finally, she turned back to him.

"It's probably best if we don't question each other's judgement over something so personal," she said tightly, "Alistair is not going to the Trenches. I am. End of story."

"I damn well will question a poor tactical decision, Warden! You ignore the fact that it is _you_ the army will follow to the Fade, not Alistair."

The Warden managed a thin, humourless smile. "You are thinking of the boy you met at the Landsmeet. Since then, Alistair has won the loyalty of his men by courage and deeds. He has grown into a leader of armies - no less than his father. Riordan told me so. And I _know_ I am the person with the best chance against Urthemiel - because unlike Alistair I live by Duncan's credo: _by whatever means necessary_."

To himself, Loghain admitted there was no one else he'd rather trust. He wondered at his own curious reluctance to concede - to let her go off into the long night. Even if Riordan's men caught up with them, it would be no reprieve - a mission that far into darkspawn territory was a one-way ticket.

As the steel is forged by the blacksmith's anvil, he watched the planes of her face shift, morph, and harden into new alignments, taking on the blank implacability of Dragonbone. He had seen that fanatical singularity before - though he could not have said where, or when. The Warden - had grown into the title. He squashed the same absurd mixture of pride and satisfaction and loss he had known when Maric stood before the statue of Andraste, blade dripping the lifeblood of the traitor Banns.

"You may be right," he admitted heavily, "You make logical decisions for emotional ends - but that's a minor flaw, I suppose."

"We don't even want to start on flaws, my General! Life's too short for me to explain your failings to you!"

The old teasing light was back in the Warden's eyes: a resonance, a crackle and spark, a smile on the face of danger. But behind it - like black reefs beneath the swirl of a frenetic sea - lay the shadow of death.

"Loghain: you and Ravenous look after each other, okay?" Her voice was so soft it seemed to float above the candlelight. As if in understanding, the mabari gave a thin, worried whine.

"I had a mabari once," Loghain said quietly, swimming in old memories, "Her name was Adalla. My mother called her a gift from the Maker - and she was, she really was. I'll take good care of him, Warden."

They resumed drinking in a determined silence - but there was a third presence at the table now. And behind the lustre of the amber eyes, Loghain saw something that made his heart ache. At last - in a baffled need to articulate _something_, the Warden blurted:

"I'm afraid, Loghain."

The admission took them both by surprise.

"Of what are you afraid, Warden?" Loghain asked quietly. He knew it would not be of death itself - knew from the manner of her conscription and her words to him: _I did my duty to the Alienage. It's how it survives. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one._

"Oh - I don't doubt I'll go to the Maker's side," she explained - with all the certainty of her Orthodox Alienage upbringing. There was an irony. The ones the world would consider blessed by the Maker - the wealthy nobles, the powerful - were the ones who found it fashionable to style themselves free-thinkers. It was always the poorest communities who cleaved the strongest to divine justice - precisely because they could expect none on Thedas. The lyrium of the masses? Or saving faith? Sheer pragmatism told Loghain the farmer that a seed had to have a sower - thirty years of war told him the Maker had long abandoned the field. Knowing the essential nature of mankind, he had seen that they deserved it.

He knew without needing to be told that the Warden had already let all other considerations go - the friends, the future she would never know, the children she would never have. Let go like leaves in winter - like seeds on the wind - until nothing remained but duty. This - this final hesitation - was her last remaining regret.

"I'm afraid of dying beneath tonnes of rock, unremembered. That's not how I thought it would be." There was a soft gloss of indignation in the low alto voice - the plaintive regret of a cheated child. Her amber eyes went slightly out of focus, head tilted up and a little leftward. "It should have been...on high ground...where everyone could see. Where the dragon and I could fly. I've always loved the tale of King Maric's duel with the usurper atop Fort Drakon. How fitting it would have been," she went on, eyes sparkling, warming to the idea, "to die atop the very symbol of Elven oppression - to soar down upon a hang-glider upon the dragon's back - in front of the whole city."

"No doubt it would have made a better story," Loghain agreed dryly, "One the citizens of Denerim would tell and retell - after they had finished clearing the blackened rubble and burying their dead."

Hadn't he had a similar talk with Maric, once? Loghain had wanted to dispatch Meghren from behind and be on their way to the palace in the time it took them to call out the terms of the duel. But Maric had wanted the grand display. _This single-combat, he's-all-mine notion is a load of horse dung..._

A slow flush heated the Warden's face. "Of course you're right," she admitted sheepishly, "Maker, that sounded stupid."

"It's only stupidity when lives are sacrificed to feed romantic notions," Loghain said gruffly, "Your own decisions protected Denerim. The allies you recruited - your refusal to play Eamon's political games - ensured that untouched, untainted city will be your monument. _I _will not forget."

The Warden looked at him gravely - an alert kind of surprise - that slowly melted to a smile of startling radiance.

"You're good at this, aren't you?" she teased him.

"Oh, shut up," Loghain groused - while the warmth of half-forgotten memory flickered through his mind. Images of Maric - all gawky enthusiasm, self-centredness, charm and ebullience burned the back of his throat. Until now, Maric had been the only person who could drive him to such extremes of fury and amusement - the only person who treated him with such aggressive familiarity. The years that had followed - the deepening of that friendship - had brightened Loghain's world like paint-splashes on grey steel. It seemed - oddly unjust that he and the Warden would not be allowed the same time. Then he snorted: since when had Ferelden cared for justice? Ferelden demanded _sacrifice_ - and there was nothing he would not do, nothing he would not give. He remembered how Celia had hated such a rival - Ferelden the bitch mistress who drained him dry then discarded him to his wife's bed. Hated fiercely - yet dared not challenge.

"Well - it's time for the Eve-of-Battle celebration, I think," she said determinedly, rising to her feet. "And I expect to see you there. If I have to show myself to our adoring public," she tried for a reluctant tone that did not fool him for a moment, "I don't see why you should get out of it!"

She headed to her own tent to change. Her last words floated back to him:

"If this is to be my last night on Thedas, I'll make it one to remember."

* * *

Loghain made his final inspection of the battlements. He spoke to each of the men - and in response they stood a little taller, their eyes more confident. All his defences were operational. He was particularly pleased with what the Dwarven engineers had come up with in a matter of weeks. The team, led by Dworkin's brother Voldrik, had felled the surrounding trees to build what they called a trebuchet. It was positioned behind the outer wall, its range sufficient to devastate the valley below. Two large mats, thickly woven from branches and saplings, shielded it. Several yards apart, suspended from thick rope, the mats were free to swing under impact. The only part of the war machine visible was the sling arm at the vertical.

Upon the walls themselves were smaller catapults. Loghain walked around them, running his hand along the wood. He turned a questioning gaze to Voldrik.

"Let me show you what we can do," the Dwarf - more sedate than his flamboyant younger brother - said. His gruff tone did not conceal his quiet pride. He gestured to the valley below. The cloudless night and almost-full moon turned the snow into a silver mirror, silhouetting firs that stood out starkly, like black sentinels. "Imagine that solitary tree is an ogre. It's about the catapult's range, I believe. I may be off by a bit, but not by much. Anyhow, watch what happens." He gestured. His grinning, eager crew stepped forward. Everyone else stepped back.

The Dwarves loaded a heavy dart in a sliding trough on the centre beam of the device. While they cranked a windlass, Voldrik pointed out features of the weapon. "The dart rides in that trough in the centre, of course. See how there are three sections to the crosspiece here in front? Now watch how those cords in the two outer sections of the crosspiece frame are tightened by the windlass. The stuff dripping out of the cords is oil: we soak the rope with it. Every few shots we re-oil. The tension squeezes it dry."

The leader of the catapult crew looked to Voldrik expectantly. He nodded. With a small mallet, the Dwarf tapped the upper section of the trigger, causing it to pivot and release the taut cord. The sliding trough leaped down the centrepost track, slamming to a stop. The catapult shivered like some gaunt, furious insect. The thick shafted dart whistled across the intervening space, literally a blur. It struck the tree. The snow atop it leapt into the air, cascaded to the ground. Moments later the sound of the impact reached the wall.

Loghain heard the Warden say, "That noise. Like a butcher's cleaver." No one else spoke. Loghain broke the silence, "How often can you hit a target that small? That's a known distance, and a stationary target."

"Ogres aren't particularly fast. Anything moving we'll hit after two ranging shots at most. We'll destroy any ogre before it can throw more than once."

Loghain grunted approval, adding thoughtfully, "If only we could stabilise them aboard ship. The Orlesian navy would come in for a nasty surprise. One of those darts would open a terrible hole in a hull, sweep away a dozen sailors, weaken a mast so it breaks. This weapon would make our ships the same as heavy cavalry, only seaborne."

Voldrik smiled. "If we survive the darkspawn, you'll have it."

Except for the always-sombre Rylock, the group inspecting the defensive preparations dressed as if for a Winterfest fair. No fair required polished chain mail, however, and weapons - however brightly shining - were never particularly festive. Still, there was colour aplenty. The Warden, as usual, set the pace. She was wearing green suede trousers, bloused above the soft dove-grey boots he had seen before - so pale they almost matched the snow. Her cousin had rescued the red cloak - torn in the fight with the Hurlock General: now it was trimmed and re-stitched as a tunic, so that the emblem of a golden ship was emblazoned across the front. It was cut full, but tucked at the waist, where a wide belt separated it from the trousers. The buckle was polished copper, chased with a stylized mabari's head. The folds formed puffed sleeves that billowed outward like bright sails - or dragon wings. It was a strange costume - no one but the Warden could have worn it successfully - and yet she looked like the incarnation of the roses Celia had loved: prickly, delicate, impractical, studded with sly little thorns of wit. That angular face, delicate and fierce as a hawk's, seemed wholly improbable: the jade earrings and coloured hair-ribbons called to mind a peacock's crest. Her fingers were bedecked with heavy jewelled rings that spelled the words: Grey Wardens. A massive gold bracelet glinted on her wrist; a heavy pendant hung from her neck. Over the entire ensemble, she wore a black leather cloak, its collar turned up. It looked like the illegitimate get of a bat and an Antivan assassin. It was emblazoned on the back with a red appliquéd fox's visage. Two amber discs were the eyes. She wore her red hair - earrings, ribbons and all - tucked inside a rakishly tilted hat. Loghain snorted. The snow wasn't so heavy a person needed a wide-brimmed monstrosity like that. Especially one with a red plume on top.

Wynne had also managed to introduce some variety into her sedate mage's robes. More dignified than the always-flamboyant Warden, her garments seemed to symbolize the spring struggling to break through winter' s cleansing. The sleeves of her woollen outer robe were a buttery yellow, the inset panels of the lower half a rich purple. Her heavy cloak matched the latter. Looking at her - letting his mind's eye stray to memory for a moment of brief indulgence - Loghain almost smiled to remember how closely her outfit matched the crocuses and daffodils that had dotted his family's farmhold.

Together, the group filed downwards, to the courtyard where all the soldiers not on watch assembled. It was a multi-coloured riot of Dalish beads and feathers, Ferelden steel - roughly practical armour glimmering in the snow like fish-scales; weapons bristling like the thorny scrub - the purple sashes of Templars and the coloured robes of the Elven Keepers. The white towers of Ostagar glimmered like Maric's blade under the darkening sky. Amber light spilled from the Chantry tower, gilding the surrounding snow with a golden sheen. The rusty red light of a hundred campfires and the brighter orange of torches formed a cornucopia of colour. Loghain was surprised to see Wynne move to stand next to Rylock - Jowan with Ser Otto. These strange pairings seemed to be more than mages and their keepers. Both pairs looked like two sides of the same coin.

The Orlesian bard was no more - in her place stood a Chantry Sister. Leliana was wearing Chantry robes, overlaid by a voluminous dark cloak. Bright green and violet trim enlivened the sleeves and lower hem. The hood, thrown back, carried identical decoration. Leliana spoke the traditional sermon before a battle:

"We stand here in this hour, good folk of Ferelden, and we contemplate the death that may await. Death is no failure, my friends. Should it find you, you will not have failed your country... you will have served your Maker. Die in this battle and when you stand before the Maker in the land beyond the Fade, He shall not find you wanting. Go not into death gladly, but with the knowledge that evil has been held at bay by your spilled blood. And if you go to stand before the Maker, go with our blessing. You shall not be forgotten. My friends, let us bow our heads and remember those who have fallen and those who have yet to fall."

Rylock and Ser Otto were smiling, completely at peace. Loghain saw Cale Mahariel roll his eyes. Leliana finished in a less orthodox fashion than most:

"And now - some music and dancing!"

The Warden insisted on playing that Maker-damned instrument she had concocted: its high, twangy wailing causing dismay to everyone over the age of twenty. Ravenous added his own howls to the gleeful cacophony. Her fellow Wardens - Alim and the little duster, Sigrun - were cheering wildly. Then she handed it to Alim - who managed to at least get a tune out of it, though it sounded like nothing on Thedas. She gave it to him as a gift. Loghain had thought that would be the worst of it - but no, the Warden stepped forward - with Alim, Sigrun, her fierce red-haired cousin Shianni, the fey little Keeper apprentice Merrill, the ill-gotten assassin Zevran, and Cale - Loghain's nearest rival among the archers - forming a backing band. Merrill played a delicate wooden flute - Zevran an Antivan tambourine, Alim the Warden's invention, Cale a strange, hollow tube, and Sigrun a drum borrowed from the Dalish. The Warden regaled them with a song she had written herself:

_...Some people have to learn_

_Some people wait their turn_

_Some people have to fight_

_Some people give their lives_

I'm going to cure the taint

Using my research

After Weisshaupt and Montsimmard

Left us in the lurch

If they say I can't do it

I don't give a P

Wardens: saving the world

Since 890 T.E.

I remember when they told me

An Elf couldn't be famous

Now my dreaming and reality

Are simultaneous

I worked my way to the top

If they put me on a pedestal,

They can take me off

Most of my family are doing good

Better than I hope

I'm from Denerim

Where they hang us knife-ears by a rope

She sang the chorus but spoke the words - in a rapid staccato firing Loghain found obnoxious to his ears. All the while she strutted like a bantam - flaunting Maric's blade in the face of the Banns, tossing the salute used by Elven rebels against their overlords, punching the air as she whipped the Elves and Dusters in her audience up into a frenzy of cheers. Loghain glowered.

_I'm always pushing myself to the limit_

_Making sure I stay ahead_

_You made me who I am_

_From the words you said_

I saw my mother beaten down

By Denerim's guards

They sure didn't know

How to treat a bard

The world is a peach

Us Elves are the pit

That Ferelden's Banns

Spew out with their spit

Us Elves are the pit

Of the succulent peach

The Banns will bite into

And shatter their teeth

I fell off

Back on my feet now

Heading to the sky

Can't even see down

Okay, no-one wants to help

I guess we're on our own

We'll build our foundations

From the stones they throw

In a country at war

True colours show

Change is life

Everybody grows

_Some people have to learn_

_Some people wait their turn_

_Some people - but not me_

_I'm Redcliffe's Champion..._

At the last - the grand finale - she suddenly threw up her hands, containing tiny sparks. Loghain glanced at Rylock - sure she must object to this blatant use of magic - but to his surprise he found the Templar gazing at the Warden with resigned disapproval. Loghain understood she must have warned her beforehand - and understood when he smelt the curious stench - a hot fog of burning powder - that this wasn't magic at all.

Suddenly the entire area was alive with pyrotechnics fired from all directions. The audience gasped - shrieked - cheered. Colours of red, green, blue, violet and gold soared into the sky. Loghain looked about him - and found Dworkin, folding his arms across his chest triumphantly, grinning from ear to ear. The dwarf saw his look and shouted:

"I _thought_ I'd finally gotten it right! Never trust a man who tells you he _likes_ being surrounded by horse shit. Gotta be something devious about the rascal!"

It took a moment for the implication to sink in. When it did, Loghain's elation drove away all annoyance, all thoughts of failure.

Dworkin might just have saved them from the darkspawn.

More: Loghain realized what this would mean for Orlesian castles - for massed ranks of chevaliers waiting to descend. He bared his teeth in a wolfish grin. Celene might try to swallow Ferelden, but they would - as the Warden had put it - shatter her teeth.

Loghain startled everyone - including the Warden - by bursting out with a loud roar of approval. Bryland and Ceorlic - not understanding the significance of the discovery - were looking at him, scandalized. The Warden grinned and bowed with an exaggerated flourish.

The atmosphere was calmed when the Warden's Orlesian mentor took over. Sister Leliana's voice held an elegance and refinement that the Warden's could not match. She sang and played more traditionally - a very different sort of song:

_My young love said to me_

_My mother won't mind_

_And my father won't slight you_

_For your lack of kind_

_And he leaned close beside me_

_And this he did say_

_It will not be long love_

_Till our wedding day_

_He leaned close beside me_

_and he moved through the fair_

_And fondly I watched him_

_Move here and move there_

_Then he made his way homeward_

_Just one star awake_

_As the swan in the evening_

_Moves over the lake_

_I dreamed it last night_

_My dead love came in_

_So softly he came_

_His feet made no din_

_And he leaned close beside me_

_And this he did say_

_It will not be long love_

_Till our wedding day_

Loghain saw the Warden's face was wet with tears. She was absently fingering the plain steel band - etched with a filigree tracing of winged vines - she had worn ever since he had known her. Ser Otto embraced her; she rested her head on his shoulder, swallowing the tears. By the time the Dalish had set up a slow drumbeat - flat, visceral, compelling - she was smiling again. Her companions clustered round her.

The dancing began.

The Warden danced first with Ser Otto: a slow, stately number. Their friendship warmed the movements: at once formal and joyous. Alim danced with Tia - not, Loghain thought, that such intimate moves could really be called "dancing". He was not surprised when they soon disappeared into a tent. The red-bearded dwarf was shaking a limb with the little Duster, Sigrun. The Antivan assassin was dancing with a succession of willing victims: before disappearing with a bevy of admirers of all races and both genders. Cale was dancing with the Warden's cousin. Jowan was dragged to his feet by Merrill - the nervous young man looked like he couldn't believe his luck. Ravenous watched the gathering with indulgent eyes, as if thinking: _Two-leggers!_

Loghain was just trying to sidle away - suddenly having an urgent need to study his maps - when the Warden caught hold of his arm and pressed a drink into his hand.

"Oh no you don't!"

In another mood, the gesture would have seemed wholly intrusive. Whisky, sadness, the Warden's heart-wrenching resemblances - the charm of Maric, the courage of Gareth, the determination of Rowan, the glory-hunting of Cailan, the greed of Katriel - undid him. He allowed her to lead him back to the courtyard - and danced with Cauthrien to the wild cheers of the men.

There were howls of approval from the Warden's companions when he partnered Wynne next. Flesh-memories of that night of grass and darkness prickled under his skin. Her lyrium-blue eyes were hooded, enigmatic; as full of secret's as a cat's.

"You surprise me, Loghain Mac Tir," the mage laughed, "I would never have suspected you could dance!"

Loghain would never tell her the source of his knowledge - but the memories were warm and rich as the yellow campfires of the rebellion - as the ripe wheat fields of a grim, hard youth that now showed to him as golden. They filled him as he unbent to dance with the Warden...lost in a distance of memories, seeing not her but Rowan: her muscular body pressed against his - Maric's grasp as they danced arm-in-arm as only comrades-in-arms could.

Then she awkwardly stumbled and he unthinkingly put out a hand to catch her as he would have steadied Rowan. The difference in height between the human warrior woman and the Elven street rat meant that his grab for Rowan's shoulder reached over her head, and she knocked against his chest. Staggering, practically embracing the young woman, he leapt back as if she had burned him. Someone guffawed. The slapstick moment turned an experience and values that to him were sacred into crude comedy. The image of Rowan melted away: he saw before him a red-haired imposter.

Loghain did not find Elven women remotely attractive. Oh, they were beautiful - in the way a flower or a graceful feline could be beautiful - but they had none of the strength and earthiness he considered womanly. He saw again the pair of slanted green eyes - a creature small and lithe and shy; a creature cunning, feral, sly - that had ended those dances. The degrading way Maric had carried on had inculcated a lifelong distaste for Elven-human pairings: he looked at the scrawny Warden with feathered plume and frivolous braids and thought - _what's wrong with this picture..._

And he saw himself reflected no more charitably in the Warden's eyes. Embarrassment had already morphed into something darker: the rawness of memories too harsh to be shared. He knew how she had been conscripted, and realised _she _had been reliving the Alienage wedding dance that should have been. He saw himself in her eyes: overpoweringly large, the crude physicality of human men like a smell of sweat, the naked threat in their assumption of their "rights" with Elven women. It did not matter that Loghain had never forced himself on a woman and never would: he and Rendon Howe had been - as she had put it - "the chevaliers of the Alienage".

Sacred memories had played in her eyes, too, like light on water, now disturbed by a thrown stone. Her eyes said: _what's wrong with this picture?_

But their shared experiences and shared losses spoke together without them knowing. They looked at each other and made a silent pact to carry on the dance for the benefit of their soldiers, who were cheering wildly, morale raised sky-high. Their eyes met: Loghain looking downward at her for the first time; the Warden gazing upward - in a shared moment of humour at the realization they had very little idea how to do this. The rhythm of Maric's Waltz would not work with the Warden: she did not know the steps, and was too light to counterbalance him. She smiled - daring once more - and began the steps to a dance Loghain was shocked to find he recognized. The half-slapstick, half-meaningful harvest dance Ferelden's farmers performed: all innuendo and lightness. The Elves - who also valued life, family and traditions - knew it too.

First cautiously: her hands forgiving, making allowances for Loghain's un-Elven height and broad build, always a little off where an Elven man would have met her...Loghain making the same adjustment. Then playfully: the Warden snatched her hand away - a maiden caught in indiscretion - and Loghain followed like the traditional Ferelden bull (the soldiers howled with laughter; the Banns and Shianni wore identical expressions of pinched disapproval). Then joyfully: with the realization that the height-weight difference gave them more scope for dramatic flourishes than dancing with their own kind did.

The Warden's approaching fate exerted a kind of gravity, like dark chains weighting her to the earth. In answer Loghain lifted her high - a bird alighted upon the branches of an old, gnarled oak - wings spread and eager head raised. It was a defiance of gravity of the most beautifully direct kind: the closest thing to flight that he could give her. The Warden raised her arms like a flaming cross, trusting him completely as she had trusted him during the campaign. Like a cut rose, blooming and dying all at once, she held nothing back: no strength or hope or life reserved for growth, for roots, for children...all those options ended, truncated, surgically excised the moment she drank of the Joining cup. And, like the sheared-off cutting, she bloomed all the more spectacularly, the faint bitterness of taint beneath the scented skin only adding to the wild, outrageous beauty.

At last he lowered her and she alighted gracefully upon the snow - more balanced and sure of herself than she could have been on her own. There were hints of almost every emotion on her flushed, radiant face: buds of sensitivity and delicacy and passion. Her amber eyes, encircled by a ring of shadow, were uplifted; their dancing lights half-hidden by lustrous darkness.

When he finally let go, her gaze clung for a moment, suddenly uncertain. One corner of her mouth quirked upward in the nascence of a sheepish smile. She stumbled - awkward as Maric - and made a rather gawky curtsey, looking like an injured heron. He made her a formal bow - to the delighted screams of the watching crowd.

The Warden seemed reluctant to meet his eyes again. The shared mood clung for a moment, then she quietly turned and headed away. It was clear she would not dance again this night.

He took her final glance with him. The Warden had always been beautiful, but there had been a certain insolent quality in it: a hard-edged curl of the mouth, a greedy glint in the eyes, a crassness of expression that showed her Alienage background beneath the songs and dreams - as though the shadow of a woman like Katriel hovered over her but had not yet settled. The closeness of impending death - the honour and sacrifice of a soldier - had touched and refined that face, bringing out delicate modellings and purity of outline never before seen; doing what life and love and great sorrow and deep womanhood joys might have done.

Loghain, watching as she made her way under the light of a single brilliant star, saw the face the Maker had meant the Warden to have, and remembered it so always.

* * *

Riordan returned to the armies of Redcliffe just after sundown, and spent long hours telling Alistair more truths than he could bear; more than he had ever asked to know. Of the fates of Duncan and Mother Boann…of Rilian's research…of her intention to go off into the long night without Morrigan to save her. He gave Rilian's last letter into Alistair's hands.

Once, the horror that had happened to Duncan would have deepened Alistair's hatred of Loghain into something tangible as taint. Now, knowing what he did of Cailan's and Eamon's roles in the tragedy, he merely felt numb. Bitterly, he told himself he deserved Loghain. They were both traitors.

Morrigan's Ritual - battling with Loghain rather than the darkspawn - how would Duncan have reacted to those goals?

Would a true Warden need to ask himself the question?

Alistair realized all was silence around him. Only the laughing flutter of the campfire and the heavy whisper of Riordan's leather armour as he rose and left them - heading towards Gherlen's Pass and a reckoning with the Orlesian Wardens - made sound.

Alistair got up - shuffled to the makeshift stables where the horses were tethered. The comforting sights and sounds and smells brought back his childhood.

If saving Rilian had been his _only_ motive for the Ritual, he might still have some self-respect left.

…_"You're drunk," Morrigan sighed disapprovingly, as she found him in his softly-lit tent._

_"Leave me alone."_

_She knelt in front of him, strange yellow tiger's eyes on a level with his. Alistair was thinking of Rilian's incomprehensible betrayal at the Landsmeet - and of Riordan's truth._

_He thrust a glass of brandy into Morrigan's hand._

_The torchlight got too bright for him, after a while. Morrigan's face seemed to be made from cut glass. He couldn't stop flinching at the brilliance of her skin and teeth._

_Morrigan pressed close to him and whispered, "You know that I can save her, Alistair, don't you?"_

_No amount of drunkenness was sufficient, it seemed, even though all breathable air now filtered through Antivan brandy. He stared at her hand in his: alabaster skin, a fine tracing of blue veins, pale, hard nails. She leaned closer. The warmth and spices of the brandy on her breath mingled with her scent of damp earth and rain and steel._

_All Alistair's thoughts gathered, formed into their inevitable shape. He felt it as the end of a breath he had been exhaling since the result of the Landsmeet. Now was the moment of non-time between the end of this breath and the beginning of the next. Here, in the privacy of his tent, Morrigan was nothing more than a shadow to him. Not a person at all. It was pure space, unoccupied, waiting for his decision._

_"Saving Rilian is not an excuse," he whispered._

_"There's never an excuse for betrayal."_

_It came to him, then, what he was doing - and why. He saw Rilian's amber eyes, watching him. To embrace Morrigan at all there had to be some violently willed blindness. So he blinded the image of Rilian and kissed her, hungrily._

_At first, as if simply to shatter his expectations, she seemed dull to it; there was no onslaught. They kissed, sometimes with bumped teeth or wrongly angled heads, for some time. Then broke apart._

_"Why are you doing this?" he whispered, "Do you love Rilian - or hate her?"_

_His voice in the dark to her. She sat astride him, the Chasind rags, the beads and feathers, tumbled about her as when she shifted forms._

_"Flemeth taught me never to ask questions."_

_She had gone slowly, he realized, because she wanted him sober. She wanted him aware of what he was doing. She wanted maximum culpability for them both. All of it was a punishment for something - for what, he did not know. For letting herself love Rilian?_

_"Is this for power?" he asked her, though her reasons meant nothing to him, though it was just his mouth making noise._

_"Of course. Of course it is. Shut up."_

_Then the clarity of consciousness as they moved through the dance of betrayal; the creation of some alien child and its unknown future. The thrill of her long, sinuous body rising above him like a snake. The bliss of her weight on him. Long periods of silence, protracted kissing. Staring at each other in the dark._

_Then it was over. Her silence; his own somnambulistic dressing._

_"And now?" he whispered. His voice was raw as if he had been weeping._

_"Now you will travel to Redcliffe and I will await her arrival from Denerim. We will not see each other again; and you must not follow. Ever."_

_"And after the battle?" Alistair asked softly, "Where will you go?"_

_Morrigan's laughter rocked through the twilight. Alistair winced at the sound. There was departure in it, a resigned melancholy that made him think of endless roads, of campfires abandoned and gone cold._

_Uncaring of her nakedness, her moon-pale body glistening in the soft candlelight, Morrigan moved to the tent flap. Shadows and light played about her form: Alistair saw hard planes, softness, hollow and swell; hair like black fire and eyes like candleflames, with darkness at their centres. Her body rippled and shifted, undulating as her spirit tore itself from its mortal frame. Her hawk form soared upward with a harsh, ascending cry. Wings stiff, she banked, stooped. Pumping once, she increased speed. The last Alistair saw of her, she was dropping down on some unsuspecting prey. Awed, he felt her arrogant pity for all trapped, earthbound creatures. A moment later, she became just a tiny speck against the glowing violet sky…_

Quickly, like a man ripping off a bandage fast, to get the pain over with, Alistair opened Rilian's letter. It was written in haste: her big, bold scrawl summoning her very spirit:

…_Alistair, of all the decisions I have made, the one at the Landsmeet was the hardest. The choice to face Urthemiel is easy by comparison. I was a dead woman the day Duncan conscripted me: fated to rot in Fort Drakon until my execution. What adventures we have known since, and what wonders I have seen! I know that I am going to the Maker's side - I also know that death can only separate us once. When your Calling comes, I shall see you again. I can see you very clearly: coming down the path to Cyrion's house. I ignore the tutting of Aunt Elva and rush to meet you. You take me in your arms; I blend my body to the hammering beat of your heart. Feel myself lifted and cherished._

_Loved…_

The fires dotted around camp were cold and dead by the time Alistair slumped over on his side, upon the straw. Fretful, the horses whinnied and shuffled, unable to rest while the unaccustomed sounds came from their human master. They had never heard him cry.

When he slept at last, Dauntless sighed relief. The horse nuzzled him, seeking contact. It was the only way the animal knew to reassure them both.

* * *

Morrigan pounded through the wet powdery whiteness of the snow, its feathery flakes cold and sweet on fur and tongue. Though she was already far from camp, her head was still filled with the human odours: the bodies of many different people, their hair, their sweat…the pungent tang of horse manure…smoked boar cooking over a fire…the noisome hot crackle of black powder…leather and woodsmoke. She smelled the snow, cold spruce needles, river ice, and open, moving water, and she caught a whiff - a delicious, tickling whiff - of a nearby hare. Where was it?

Running as a wolf was very easy. Morrigan leapt over snow and ice and scrub as easily as if she were flying. The scent of the hare filled her mouth with saliva. On a high bank overlooking the Frostback River, she stopped. She smelled the stale odour of the human scouts who had passed this way recently: sour and threatening. Morrigan marked the place with a scat and looked at it with quiet satisfaction. _I am here_, the scat said, _let those who pass this way know it and take care._

Softly, Morrigan began to sing. Starting high, her perfect note grew loud, lasted long, and finally fell: a great stirring cry that sent a shock of pleasure though her. With all her heart, and all the breath in her lungs, she joyously threw her voice out into the night, rising and falling. Shivering with delight, she sang louder than ever, sending her voice through the width of the sky, up to the almost-moon, out to the far corners of the valley where her echoes rang!

The joy of singing cleared her mind completely of her human thoughts: the loss of her Elven packsister now only a background ache. In fact, when the song was over, she felt so pleased with herself she gave a yip of excitement and wagged her tail, running and bounding in playful circles.

But as she began to lope along the river, following it to the ice-covered mountains, she stopped in her tracks. Her fur prickled along her shoulderblades and her eyes stretched wide. Far away, she heard the voices of other wolves, also singing. Their calls could only mean they had heard her, and wanted her to hear them. She held her breath, listening. A deep male voice - a low female voice - several younger males and females. A youngster. The singers were many and strong. Their song was a warning.

All Morrigan's forms - the wolf, the hawk, the cat, the human - had one thing in common: they were alone. No pack sheltered her. The halfbreed offspring of a union between dragon and man, she was forever a stranger in a strange land. Except - now her belly felt the first stirrings of life. A child who would never have the power she had sought but who, nonetheless, carried her blood, her heritage, her magic. Had her Elven sister been right: had she gained more than she had lost?

Well, the strong pack was in the south-east, nestled within the marshgrasses near the place she had once called home. Her hackles up, Morrigan headed south-west. There, on a frozen grass tussock, she carefully placed marks of urine, nosed the marks, and marked again. It looked as though four had marked here: something those other wolves might think about if they ever came this far!

With that Morrigan turned her mind to hunting. The trail of the hare was long gone, so she ran loping towards the foothills of the Frostbacks. The myriad scents washed through her, helping her pick her way in the moonlight. Low to the earth among the small, sparse shrubs, she sniffed questioningly. The silver moon shone on white snow. She ran on.

By dawn she found herself on the western shore of a frozen lake. Far out on the wide stretch of snowy ice, between the pink moon setting in the west and the red light gathering in the east, she smelled something new - and strong.

A carrion flavour - heavy and rotten. Darkspawn! Many darkspawn. Morrigan whined softly, flattened herself in the scrub. The human part of her understood the significance. Darkspawn heading northward, towards the fortress, would come upon her human allies unexpectedly - ruin the trap that had been set! The human armies would be attacked on both sides. She stopped, ears cocked, considering. She could become a hawk and warn them.

But what difference would it make? The only one among them she cared about was her Elven sister - and Rilian had already doomed herself. Whether Morrigan returned or not would make no difference. What loyalty did she hold for the others? Words like "duty" - "service" - "patriotism" were artificial constructs designed to lull the weak into serving the strong. Memories of the days travelling Ferelden, fighting alongside her strange companions, rose like golden bubbles: beautiful, ephemeral. They were popped by pragmatism. Love and friendship had conspired to break her, make her weak; she threw them off like unwanted chains. Love had no meaning. Survival had meaning. Power had meaning. So Flemeth had taught her, not out of affection but in the manner of an older self to a younger self. Morrigan would do what was needed, by whatever means necessary. Not for the world, but for herself and her seed.

_Song inspirations were:_

_Rilian And Alistair: Eminem ft Rihanna - Love The Way You Lie_

_Morrigan and Rilian: Madonna - Love Tried To Welcome Me_

_Morrigan the Wolf: Florence and the Machine - Howl_

_The Night's Celebrations: Chipmunk ft Chris Brown - Champion_

_The Last Dance: Fairport Convention - She Moved Through The Fair_

_Rilian's song during the night's celebrations is Champion, by Chipmunk ft Chris Brown (with some alterations by me, Melanie Rawn and Arsinoe!) - I can so see her strutting her stuff to this, flaunting Maric's blade in the face of the Banns... : ) Leliana's is She Moved Through The Fair (I like Sandy Denny's version)._

_The moment where Loghain dances with Rilian owes everything to icey cold's wonderful Interlude X: Maric's Waltz, from Trovommi Amor. Maric teaching Loghain to dance will forever be canon for me now :)_

_I have always found the Dark Ritual to be one of the most near-the-knuckle elements of DAO. Morrigan's explanation that the child at this early stage does not have a soul to clash with the Archdemon's carries echoes of RL debates over abortion and designer babies. Morrigan seems to be going with self-awareness as the key - therefore I don't think she'd have a problem with conceiving the child the day Alistair left the Landsmeet (the dark rumours in Chapter Ten) and waiting till now to make the offer. The child would still be in its first trimester. With her Alienage culture and orthodox Andrastean beliefs, I don't think Ril could see the Ritual as anything other than evil. She might be tempted to save her own life (who wouldn't be!) but her beliefs and her rage over Alistair and Morrigan's betrayal would give her the strength to resist. Morrigan will take her untainted child to Orlais, where the Empress will be only too happy to groom a child of Maric's bloodline as heir to Ferelden. _


	23. Chapter 23: The Abyss

**Warning: this penultimate chapter contains disturbing imagery and themes, and the deaths of several major characters. **

"_Libera me, Domine!" you sang the Psalm, and when  
The Priest pronounced you dead, and flung the mould upon your feet,  
A beauty came upon your face, not that of living men,  
But seen upon the silent brow when life has ceased to beat._

_I loved you first when young and fair, but now I love you most;_

_The fairest flesh at last is filth on which the worm will feast;  
This poor rib-grated dungeon of the holy human ghost,  
This house with all its hateful needs no cleaner than the beast,_

_This coarse diseaseful creature which in Eden was divine,  
This Satan-haunted ruin, this little city of sewers,  
This wall of solid flesh that comes between your soul and mine,  
Will vanish and give place to the beauty that endures._

The Leper's Bride, Alfred Lord Tennyson

Rilian lay, staring up into a darkness that seemed alive with all the space that wasn't her. The familiar shapes - the Orlesian chair, the table with its quill and maps, the bundles of clothes and paintings and gifts, strewn carelessly about the floor - took on strange life in the cold bubble of darkness, all sounds muffled by the black-and-white swirl of snow and inky night. The sashes that kept the wind from the ornate tent swung slowly back and forth. The lamp that Shianni had given her, its candle burned to a nub, was chill and ghostly - a corpse-light, a pale cipher. Rilian tried to paint it as something friendly - the carved pumpkins of Fade's Eve - but the memory of home was painful. She blotted it from her mind as she had moved to this tent, away from Shianni, away from Ravenous. She must cut the silken threads that bound her to friends, family, loved ones - else she would never be able to do what she must.

She had woken from smothering dreams, drenched in cold sweat and jolted repeatedly by violent shudders. People called her a hero and she had come to believe in her own legend - but they did not know of the agonies of rebellion and despair and cowardice, of the shame of lying curled under the blanket, packed as tight into herself as possible, sweating and shivering and dreading first light. The space under her ribcage seemed huge and hollow, bent to the shape of everything she was going to lose. She had thought Riordan's words - his belief that the souls of both Warden and Archdemon would be destroyed - would make no difference. That the legacy she would leave - the wings of ideas and vines that bound her to the future, to life - would be enough. Now they showed as an ephemeral flicker across the void - a shiver of flame that danced and fought to stay alive above a vast pit of emptiness. She stared downwards and quailed before it. Once, she panicked so badly she found herself on the floor with her knees hugged against her chest and no idea how she got there. She lashed herself with her own contempt but found no help in it.

At last she rose, thin shift clinging to damp skin. She hugged herself, and padded over to the candles contained in one bag - tripping over another as she did so. An ungainly scramble - shuffling and cursing - and she stood with prize in hand. Her hands floated in the dark like pale flying creatures, fumbling with flint and tinder. The sudden blaze of warmth created an orange cocoon which kept shadows at bay. Next, she reached for the suit of Dragonscale - a rust-coloured sentinel that now lay inert, like the scab over a wound. She yearned for its cold embrace: her body felt like a boneless sack of blood - she wanted as much armour around it as possible. She fought with individual pieces - clipping shin-guards, vambraces, pauldrons and sabatons in place - sweating when she struggled with the chest-piece. Then, armoured like a golem - envying them fiercely, for they had already passed through the death that lay before her - she paced. Back and forth. Back and forth...

Sabatons clicked like a cold and precise time-piece; the sands of her hourglass bleeding out. Always one way...always down to death. She stared fixedly at the green luminous glow of the Deep Roads bracelet Rylock had given her. It was a pale firefly...the light stored during daytime had nearly faded.

The air lightened imperceptibly - droplets of a red dawn melding with the black.

She heard footsteps - slow, inexorable. Firm and steady...faltering...quick and light. Her Wardens and her friends.

There was Loghain. A wave of gratitude rose in her as she saw he had not brought Ravenous. Ravenous had more than an animal's intelligence - but not enough to understand why she left without him. He said, "Good luck, Warden. It has been an honour to have fought at your side, however briefly. May the Maker watch over you."

Rilian blinked in surprise. "I didn't think you believed in the Maker - or anything at all besides Ferelden."

"I believe in Him for you, Warden."

Rilian nodded once, briefly. The farewell that mattered had been danced, not spoken.

Quickly, without ceremony, Rylock raised her left arm, removed her right gauntlet, and extended her hand. Rilian clasped it, feeling the strange satin texture of the skin, the uneven striations, the knots and furrows. Rylock unconsciously gripped her hand like a sword of mercy. Rilian made sure she squeezed hard enough for Rylock to feel the pressure though she could not feel the touch.

"Trials 1: 14, Warden," Rylock said, "For there is no darkness in the Maker's sight _and nothing He had wrought shall be lost_."

Rilian blinked, startled - at once a burst of radiant colour chased away the shadow of oblivion. Riordan had been wrong - her life would be lost; not her soul.

"That's twice you've saved my soul," she said - low enough that the others could not hear - referring to the time she, Alistair, Leliana and Wynne had been imprisoned by the Sloth Demon in the Circle Tower. There she would have stayed - married to a demon wearing Nelaros' face - had Rylock not showed up with her writ of annulment and put an end to their captor.

"I trust," she whispered, smiling, "That when I meet my husband in the Fade, and celebrate the wedding we never had in life, you won't interrupt us again."

Rylock met the flippant remark with a small shake of her head and slight glance ceilingward.

Leliana stood beside Rylock, wearing her archer's leathers rather than her Chantry robe. Today she would be fighting, not praying. "So this is it," she said, a soft gloss of wonderment burnishing the light, feathery Orlesian accent, "It's strange to think that all our fates will be decided in a matter of hours. I wish I could go with you."

Zevran's gilded, handsome face was unusually sombre. "You do not wish me to stand beside you at the end? I would willingly storm the gates of the Black City itself. "

Rilian smiled at her golden friend: the only person she knew who could out-fight, out-think and out-dress her. She thought of the hunt for him that would never truly be over - and it seemed he did too, for there was a light, wistful resignation in his voice when he added, "Ah well - I have a feeling the fates will bring us together again soon. Let's give them something to remember, eh?"

Shianni engulfed her in a fierce hug. On Rilian's tongue she tasted the cider they would not drink together, the songs they would not sing; she felt the warm bodies of the children - Soris' or Shianni's - she would never hold. _Maker, it is so hard to die. Of all the things that must be endured, this must surely be the hardest. _In her mind Shianni's voice replied tartly that nothing was easy for Elves, nor ever had been. She had done other things that were hard: had seen her mother mutilated in the square, Nelaros' dream-filled green eyes glazed and lifeless; his throat a bloody maw. Had seen Shianni lying brutalised at her feet. She took a deep breath, holding all those things in her mind - all the pain she could remember; all the love she had for family and friends - and tossed them high, with her hope for life. And felt them taken: a vast weight she had not known she carried. She pressed a small, battered journal into Shianni's hands. Its title was: "I Speak Because I Can". Rilian's diary - lost at Ostagar, found again when they cleared Ishal.

"Ask Leliana to read it to you," she whispered, "Her mother was Elven, too."

She gave Wynne her other diary: written in a blank journal found in the Circle Tower. Rilian had swallowed wonder at a world that held so many books - so much treasured paper. She thought Wynne - who felt about the written word the way Rilian felt about the oral tradition of music: sacred by definition - would appreciate her version of everything that had happened to them. On the crisp new paper she had written: "A Maiden's Vow" - and told of the Circle, of Redcliffe and the Ashes, of Orzammar and the discovery of the elusive Dalish. Her entries had become more sporadic since arriving in Denerim - but she had recorded the Landsmeet and the War Council at the Hafter River. She had recorded Loghain's strategy in meticulous detail, and been unable to resist adding some colourful descriptions of the Banns: including a full - a _very_ full - depiction of Loghain himself. His good points and bad had been subjected to the same merciless lucidity. She had described the process of the gliders and her modified lute in great detail, and worked on some songs. She had tried to write about meeting the Architect - only to find that the words she struggled for shrivelled on the page - or else sat too comfortably, hiding the horror beneath.

"I think you'll enjoy my descriptions of Loghain, Greagoir and Irving," she promised.

Wynne embraced her, and she felt the tremors of brittle age and a mother's tenderness.

"I will see you again soon," Wynne choked softly, "Till then - keep out of trouble in the Golden City."

Rilian made a sound half-way between a laugh and a sob. Wynne was right - Rilian was not the only one living on borrowed time.

Her father was next. A strange silence between them.

"Remember when you fell out of the Vhenadahl when you were little - broke your legs?" he muttered.

"Course I do! Didn't I scream!"

"I was relieved," he said.

Rilian blinked. She wasn't sure where he was going with this - wasn't sure she'd understand. Wasn't sure it would help either of them if he articulated it.

"Relieved?"

"I remember thinking: no one breaks their legs _twice_. Like you'd used it up, see? One of the bad things that could happen. Like it couldn't happen again."

Rilian was shocked by the look on his face; she reached out to him. He put up a hand to ward her off.

She had never seen her father cry. He fought it, made his jaws hard, held her at arm's length as if her embrace would destroy him. He fought as hard as he'd done to feed and protect her all her life, but it kept breaking through. Rilian had lived her whole life and never seen this - his face crumpling, his lips quivering, his whole frame shaking as the sobs bullied their way through.

"Don't, Dad. Oh - don't..."

Cyrion stood bowed with his hands covering his face. Ashamed. Horrified because he hadn't the strength to hold this back. Unmanned completely, he let her put her arms around him. When she pulled his hands from his face his eyes were open, the gnarled, fine-wrinkled cheeks wet with tears and snot. Rilian couldn't believe she'd seen this.

But she met him with a determination magically conjured by his collapse.

"Look at me, Dad," she said - forcing him to see that she _could_ see him like this - that he had lost nothing - that he was her father. "You _look_ at me, now."

"Ah, Rilian, Rilian…Maker…"

"You hush now. I'm going to be alright." Dull pain in her chest. She didn't want to say any more. She hoped he'd understand later that she _would_ be alright, by the Maker's side.

Thank the Maker Voldrik arrived then, with the news that he and his men had cleared away the stone barriers they had put beneath Ishal.

She could manage no coherent words - only a muffled: "Love you" - as she turned away.

Her Wardens, waiting outside the tent, fell in beside her.

* * *

Rylock left the Warden's tent, walked out into the howling darkness under snow-tormented skies. Her own small campfire struggled desperately to survive. She reached the bleak triangular shadow of her own tent, that showed only as a deeper darkness against snow and the faint dawn-glow. Like a wet black sail - or the shadows that boiled on the colourless dive of an Archdemon's wings.

Inside, she made her way through the familiar darkness - counted steps to the wooden cross that formed Andraste's stake and the hard prayer mat, knelt, and prayed.

She knew it would be presumptuous - wrong - to pray to the Maker for anything at all. What more did she need than Him? Only Him. But the outcome she would have died for played out in eidetic images around her. The darkness and the silence became a playground for memory...

... _The rain hissed and spattered upon her Templar armour, plastered her short hair to her scalp. Ser Guy had got a campfire going within the shelter of a small cave - he gestured her towards it, waving a languid hand._

_"Gah - no apostate's going to give us trouble in _this_ downpour. There's one thing they value more than freedom and that's their own comfort. One whiff of our cookfire and he'll turn himself in."_

_Twenty-year-old Rylock relaxed and sighed in contentment, sure he was right. The fire made yellowish sparks that danced towards the heavens, seemed to become part of the first pinpricks of stars. As they shared the stew - cooked by Rylock and flavoured by Guy's Orlesian herbs - Rylock remembered his many lessons in spar, his words when she finally beat him: "Now I know why they call you Broomstick: you hit hard and sweep clean!" - the words that had transmuted the mocking childhood nickname to something to be proud of. She smiled. She wasn't smug. The ugly duckling hadn't transformed into a swan. But she had found the Maker - and He had seen her. She did not feel Him during prayer or in the Chantry. But when she sparred, or when she did __His work, she was aware of His presence, close as her own shadow. Except she was the shadow, and He was light._

_There was a shuffle at the edges of her hearing; her Templar senses crackled to life. Guy heard it too. Both rose quickly, hands on sword-hilts, and fanned out. Rylock squinted into the rain-washed darkness - caught a shape that only showed up as a deeper darkness against the glint of rain and stars. A mage's sodden robe, its wet darkness gleaming like the fin of a shark._

_A moment later the figure stepped out. His hands were raised. He had abandoned his staff. Rylock snatched a glance at Guy - what to do? Knight Commander Greagoir had told them the mage - one of First Enchanter Remille's most trusted colleagues - was no threat. _

_"Don't hurt me - I'll come quietly," came the cultured voice. He sighed - a note of weary resignation - and said: "Your friend is right: I'll give you no trouble in this downpour. Getting warm matters more to me than freedom."_

_At a nod from Guy, Rylock lowered her sword. "You will be returned to the Tower," she said stiffly._

_He spread his hands wide. An ingratiating smile slithered across full lips. "Surely you could spare some of that stew before turning me in?"_

_Rylock did not think it proper to sit and eat with an apostate - but before she could say so Guy had already resumed stirring the pot. It seemed to them both that the lazy fool was no threat._

_"Why, thank you," the man said - speaking to Rylock even though it had not been her idea. "You are a gracious host."_

_There was a hint of a private smile that unnerved Rylock - while the word "host" seemed a little razor-edged. To be safe, she struck out with a Smite to completely drain his Mana. That should take care of things._

_Then she took a step forward - reached to tie his hands._

_There was a strange inward prickle. An alien energy - something that slid into her mind like an insect's stinger. Rylock tried to shout a warning but her lips would not move. The words were stones in her mouth. And then - terribly, unimaginably - the sight of her own hand moving...a long-fingered pale spider...white; a horror. The pale, alien thing grasped the hilt of her sword - drew it from its scabbard with a hiss like metallic rain._

_"Rylock?" came Guy's voice, confused, "You don't have to hurt the old..."_

_The old man smiled. Lips and teeth were stained red where he had bitten into his own tongue._

_All her body's history unrolled before her against the background of the storm:_

_Muted adolescent yearnings associated with sin. The touch of first blood on her thigh._

_The mocking laughter of her fellow squires: "No wonder you're training to be a Templar - you'd freeze the cock off any man who tried to touch you."_

_And then Guy's training that had transformed it to a thing of pride and joy - muscles coming awake, reflexes honed and sharpened like steel...sweaty, triumphant sessions of spar and the joy of her first friendship._

_Here, now, the Blood Mage inverted it all - made Guy's training and her own hard-won skills the instrument of his defeat. Made her dance like a foul puppet till he lay bleeding on the ground. The root-system of her history a conspiracy of culprits: the above-ground plant a marionette, reflexes and muscle-memory hijacked by a will not her own. Her body - thoughts - feelings - memories - worn like armour: a costume to amuse evil. Her mind torn open; a filthy and malicious hand pawing memories that were golden bubbles of light._

_Blood Control traced and mapped the web between the five senses and the ability to govern response. It interposed its will between, sharing consciousness while solely commanding the pathways of reaction. The host, the bottled personality, was mute and limbless for any least expression of its own will, while hellishly articulate and agile in the service of the mage's._

_It was Rylock's own hands that struck her friend down and then tied him, helpless and aware, with her own sash. That used her Knife of the Divine to turn his body to a map of torment that would make a demon smile. And her own body that experienced the orgasms of the mage that crowned his despoliations. _

_Rylock's will - her choice - was her last citadel. The choice between letting sanity bleed away into the void - so she wouldn't have to look out of her own eyes; see and feel what she did to him - and remaining aware. She chose the latter. It was all she could do for him. She couldn't help him, but she could be with him in his suffering._

_His eyes knew it. They looked into hers and saw the person behind the blood puppet. He whispered: "You are guiltless."_

_So the mage made her blind him. Guy's face - turned toward her at the hour of his death - seemed to weep scarlet tears. But his last movement before death was to smile..._

Rylock knew that yearning was only weakness - that the Maker intended reality to be endured, not wished away. But she had wished so many times that she had not learned to fight so well - that Guy could have won that battle and ended her instead.

Now the evils of the world tormented the young woman she called friend and the cleric she called sister with the same dilemma. What Rylock had experienced for only a few hours, Boann now experienced forever. To be a monster, mute and limbless - to know one is a monster; feel it in every cell - and not be able to stop it. To be used to create nightmares. Unless Rilian could end her.

Even if the young woman succeeded, Rylock knew she would never see Rilian in life again. She reminded Rylock so much of Guy - and of Meredith Stannard - and she would join them at the Maker's side. Rylock had not known until the night of grass and darkness that she had loved those two comrades. She would not have acted on it if she had. Some Orlesian poet Guy had liked had called love food for the soul - but the soul, like the body, must eat to live - it mustn't live to eat. The soul must live to serve the Maker. Guy had translated the Maker's light for her. Some subtle influence had passed from him to her, and for the first time in her life she had seen in His world the wonder she had always looked for, and always missed. Meredith - so talented, so lost - could be infuriating: an opponent, a monster with a vision, a comrade. Rilian was so like Guy in her flippant love of life, her courage - so like Meredith in her wilful belief that only _she _could make things right - she might have been their daughter. Rylock saw her that way.

After Guy's death, Boann had said to Rylock: _The very worst thing that could ever happen to us would be to prove unworthy of the Maker. Anything else is just hard: and hard things can always be endured. You were with Ser Guy in his darkness - you did not abandon him. But now he is with the Maker. Do not remember him like that. Do not follow him into the Dark, for he is in the Light. _Rylock had remembered their years as Chantry children: her own jealousy of Mother Leanna's favourite, and the way she had despised Boann for crying in the dorms at night. Learning why she had cried - the source of her hard-won wisdom - had made Rylock bitterly ashamed. Boann had given Rylock the bracelet made from rock of the Deep Roads to keep time during her stay in Aeonar, a necessary measure for all those touched by Blood Magic.

Rylock had kept those words in mind when she returned to active duty: straight into the mess of Remille's rebellion. Rylock, Greagoir and every other Templar who did not support Orlais had been imprisoned; rescued by Loghain. To meet another maleficar and have it happen all over again would be hard. But to abandon her calling and have it happen to someone else - someone who would not know in his bones and body what to expect from a Blood Mage - would be to prove unworthy.

Would Boann still remember those words? Would Rilian be there for her in the dark? Who would be there for Rilian, at the end?

Rylock knelt - whispered the prayer of Transubstantiation - and drank the lyrium Rilian had given her. The ill-gotten mixture made by Rilian's Dwarven supplier was foul. The Maker transformed it to an expression of His light nonetheless.

There was meaning in that. Rylock hoped it was not weakness to feel comforted.

* * *

Loghain stood atop the fourth floor of the Tower of Ishal. It afforded him a view of Lothering Forest to the north and the horde approaching from the west, chased by the armies of Warden Alistair. The dark green mass of the Wilds loomed to the south - and to the east, a luminous line of dawn like rose champagne set on fire. The pink line turned the frozen surface of Ostagar to a pearly rose sheen. The courtyard was an eerie, uncoloured paleness. He could see soldiers by the gate; dark against the dawnlit snow. The snow had stopped; all was quiet. The calm before the storm.

The Warden - _Rilian_, he allowed himself to think, though he had thought of her as The Warden ever since she had forbidden him to call her by her name (my _father_ calls me that - the father _you_ tried to sell to Tevinter!) - and her men had been consigned to the deeps. In the tunnels beneath, she was moving toward her fate. At the thought, he patted Ravenous' square slab of a head with absent-minded gentleness. Beside him stood Knight Commander Rylock, Nathaniel Howe, and Wynne.

Wynne said: "Alistair's armies will have been chasing the horde all night. They'll be worn out."

Loghain said: "The advantage of surprise will outweigh that." There was no point in saying that for all they knew the horde had already turned and crushed Alistair's men. That thought was in every mind already.

The nascence of a smile lightly brushed Nathaniel's lips. "At least they've got relief coming. The chevalier volunteers won't be far behind." In another mood, Loghain might have found that amusing. Now the effort to lighten the mood went ignored.

The young Howe gestured towards the trebuchet in the courtyard below and the catapults spread across the battlements. They were black against the rose heavens. "Dworkin's Blackpowder jars fired from trebuchets will work like magical fire".

Loghain knew he was being reminded that bringing Dworkin from Vigil's Keep had been Nathaniel's idea. Now that Channon Cousland was credited with supplying much-needed reinforcements, he no doubt wished to even the balance. But Nathaniel went on: "Perhaps we should have given more to Cauthrien's force to the north. They could use the Blackpowder in the portable barriers."

Cauthrien was commanding the Ferelden infantry stationed between Lothering Forest and Lake Calenhad. The men of Thomas Howe, Channon Cousland, Bryland, Ceorlic and Loren were stationed there. If Nathaniel were concerned for his brother that was surprising - Loghain got the impression the younger Howe saw the buffoon as nothing more than an albatross around the neck of the Howe name.

His answer was curt. "We don't have an unlimited supply. The catapults are much more effective." His own voice surprised him. He didn't mean to sound so unpleasant. The worry for Cauthrien was eating into him.

The gathering cloud of the Blightstorm darkened the sky; began to turn the fallen snow to black ashes. No-one spoke of it - but a communal, almost psychic awareness told them a not-understood menace stalked them. A melancholy vista stretched before them. Fallow fields sported malevolent rows of angled posts, sharpened ends aimed to disembowel any darkspawn foolish enough to charge. At the edge of the Lothering Forest, shadowy forms drifted in and out of trees.

To the west, the line of darkness that was the horde rippled slowly forward. Behind them, a drum sounded - heavy and dark. Loghain jerked his head in that direction. "The Chasind," he said, and when that beat stopped, he pointed, "They'll work all the way round from their east-facing point to their northern, western and southern. They're telling us they're here." The second drum fell silent. A third roared to life.

They went no further before the first flashes of the Circle's magic lit the western sky. The illumination turned dim purple clouds to a violet glow, like faerie fire. Arrows from both sides pierced the clouds at their apogee before ripping downward to fall like metallic rain. Their humming, unceasing passage played melody to the Chasind drums. Darkspawn screamed. A magical explosion rocked the earth. This time, the cries were all-too-human.

"The emissary," Rylock said grimly.

The Chasind drums were incessant. Promising.

As soon as the horde came in range, the catapults atop Ostagar's walls and the trebuchet in the courtyard fired into the valley. Anxiety brushed Loghain's mind - he hoped the Dwarven engineer had calculated the range correctly - that he would not tear apart Alistair's army along with the horde. The catapult shafts were coated with Dworkin's Blackpowder and set on fire. Voldrik, empowered by his brother's mixture and his own knowledge, was a machine: sighting, firing, killing. Nathaniel and his archers - Loghain had placed him in command of the Orlesian bard, the Warden's cousin, the Dalish and Night Elves - rushed to spread out along the wall beside the catapult crews.

Catapults and bows turned the horde into a shambles. Darkspawn sang from guttural throats - a visceral, compelling paean that Loghain felt rather than heard - screamed as they fell down into death. They died in heaps. Their own archers drew blood aplenty. A young Night Elf spun from his crenel; dropped to the battlewalk below. More staggered back, clawing at wounds.

Dworkin was manic with glee, in his element. With his jars of Blackpowder he blasted holes in grouped darkspawn, sundering the very ground where they had stood. Nathaniel, beside him, worked his bow with deadly precision.

The darkspawn attack shattered on the missiles. When the survivors broke and retreated, the soldiers and Templars facing west howled victory.

They nearly drowned out the alarm raised by the southern wall. Men streamed off the battlewalk. Catapults stood abandoned. Some defenders dropped to their knees, clawing at their throats, their eyes. Many more were seized by violent coughing.

Loghain looked to see a gigantic ogre throw a stone that collapsed the top section of the wall. The weight of it tore out an equally long section of wooden battlewalk. The mass dropped onto the roof of the stables. The screams of broken animals mingled with those of broken men.

Another hurled stone enlarged the damaged area.

Loghain realised the Maker-damned, _intelligent_ darkspawn General had tricked them. Through the hive-mind, he was commanding a second mass of darkspawn who streamed southward from the Wilds themselves. Loghain had thought the darkspawn magic to the west had signalled the General's position. But clearly there was more than one emissary in the horde. The General attacked from the south - a black, suppurating cloud of taint blooming from his staff. It choked the surprised defenders. They were terrifying to see; agonised. Their cries were horrible. When death came, it came very hard.

Alistair's armies were now sandwiched between the horde they had chased from the west and the mass that attacked from the south.

And from below the foot of the valley the darkness gathered into motion.

* * *

Far behind the writhing mass of battling men and darkspawn - where Alistair, Teagan and Fergus led the front lines - the mages of the Circle gave them supporting fire. Thus, while the armies of Chasind and Bannorn found themselves surrounded by the southern assault, Irving and his people saw it from a distance.

As the sun rose, the sky modulated from purple-blue to pink, then pearl, transforming to vastness the black catapults and flags that fluttered above Ostagar. But the valley where Irving stood remained in a clenched gloom. His companions - Sweeney, Ines, and Karl - shuffled their feet. Some of them studied the ground. They seemed decidedly unadventurous. They had the air of people who would prefer to be at home reading.

Irving would have preferred to be at home himself, but "home" was a charred ruin now - their exile at Redcliffe could not last. The First Enchanter found himself hurled into chaos as though the pieces of a carefully-placed chess game had been swept at random across the board. And he knew that, if they were to make it out of this valley alive, his powers must be good for something.

Greagoir was ordering the mages and Templars to fall back. Irving scowled. It was all very well to protect mages and Templars, but what about the poor bastards in the front lines?

"Is it right to abandon the rest?" he asked Greagoir. Greagoir didn't answer, and Irving didn't expect him to. He wasn't talking because he wanted answers - or even reassurance. He was talking to keep himself from dithering.

Irving didn't like danger. Philosophically, he didn't approve of it. Magic was for research and experimentation, for understanding and knowledge, not for bloodshed. For that very reason, he approved passionately of the creation of the Circles. And the conflicts inherent in his own position had made him an indecisive mediator: someone who - as that insolent young firebrand Anders had once observed - couldn't keep his feet out of the shit on either side of the fence because he couldn't get the fencepost out of his arse.

Well, he had made decisions at last. On the Warden's request, he had brought the Circle here, into this mess, because he believed it was the right thing to do. But he still needed to keep talking.

"You had yourself a nice rest while we Enchanters were being treated to Uldred's hospitality. Wouldn't even fight alongside the Warden to get us out. Damned if I'm going to let you be so lazy again."

"Oh, shut up, Irving," Greagoir muttered; but he obviously didn't expect the First Enchanter to heed him.

Irving turned to Sweeney. "A few Stonefists at that new bunch of darkspawn wouldn't go amiss."

Sweeney might be older than anyone in the Tower, and senile, but he understood Stonefists: he'd been teaching magic for decades. Somehow, he seemed to put himself in the right frame of mind without effort; achieve the right kind of concentration as simply as striking a flint for light.

He sent his missiles straight into the mass of darkspawn ahead, timing it perfectly.

"Cover ourselves, you old fools!" Greagoir shouted. "You're practically _begging _them to cut you down!"

Both men ignored him.

Sweeney had his eyes closed. Maybe he was taking a nap. Abruptly, a darkspawn interrupted his pleasant time in the Fade. Sweeney smote the creature's ruin upon the rock of the valley, waving his hands and screeching: "Shoo! Shoo! Go back to where you came from!"

"Well Greagoir," Irving taunted his long-time friend and foe, "Can your Templars do better?"

Greagoir's sigh was weary, resigned. "Very well. We'll draw the horde away from Alistair's force. We're a pair of old fools."

"Then we'll die as brave fools."

The mages and Templars rained magic and arrows upon the horde until the creatures turned en masse from their quarry. At Greagoir's signal, his men formed defensive ranks, Irving and mages behind them, firing over their heads. He dimly heard Anders mutter:

"We'll leave the bucket-heads for another time, Karl. Those helms look stupid - but the darkspawn look worse."

Irving remembered a childhood that was longer ago than he cared to admit. A childhood of peace in a small Ferelden farmhold. He remember the time he'd watched a fox try to escape a mabari. Caught in the open, it turned, yelping defiance and terror. It scratched the mabari's nose, and the peaceful summer's day was shattered by the mabari's unbelieving roar of outrage.

It swatted the small animal once.

That last image was clearest of all in Irving's mind as the bulk of the horde charged forward to claim their vengeance.

* * *

Commander Cauthrien acted quickly when she saw what was happening in the valley to the south. She moved to outflank the horde which had flanked Alistair's army. Channon was impressed by her speedy organisation - and by the way she cleverly kept him at opposite sides to Thomas Howe and the mingled Highever and Amaranthine forces. The men absorbed from the fall of Highever hailed him as their rightful leader - but as the results of the Northern Civil War weren't yet known Cauthrien would be unwise to antagonise the Howe brothers. Channon only commanded the army of Elven and human rebels he had brought with him.

"If we survive this - and if I'm still heir of Highever - I will marry you, Cauthrien," he promised with feigned solemnity.

Cauthrien laughed shortly. "Be serious, my lord! What would a pampered nobleman like you do with a soldier like me?"

"Ask not what you can do for me but what I could do for you! I'd give you the opportunity to squander my inheritance."

Cauthrien huffed and turned away. "Nobles!" she scoffed.

It was strange how flashes of the old Channon emerged now and then. But when he turned to regard Thomas Howe, his emotions flattened and bled out till what remained resembled the instinct of a stalking leopard - a patient hunter waiting in the long grasses near a water hole.

The armies met with a thunderous clash. Archers from atop Ishal fired into the horde below. They went down under so many arrows that the bodies and snow seemed to magically sprout feathered shafts. Of course, it was hard in the confusion to tell the difference. One such arrow claimed the life of Thomas Howe. Channon reached him amid the chaos - stared down blankly. He felt nothing, only numb - freed from the constant need to hate this man. When he looked at the arrow, he was not as surprised as he might have been to see a feather bearing the Howe crest. He looked up - to where the tiny figure of Nathaniel commanded the archers. Nathaniel must have been aiming for _him_. He stood up, waiting for him to draw again, refusing to be snuffed out without facing his enemy.

But Nathaniel did not loose again. One hand absently moved in an elegant reflex: the salute of one noble to another.

Channon understood. The younger Howe did not want his brother's actions revealed at the Landsmeet, when Channon challenged him. He knew the oaf would shame the Howe name and ruin their chances of inheriting the Arling. From this Channon deduced that there was no remaining evidence of Bryce Cousland's dialogue with Orlais. The Cousland position must be stronger than he'd realised. Someone had disposed of the incriminating documents - a person Channon did not know but considered a friend.

Channon had been considering murdering Thomas in the heat of battle himself. _Loghain _he would choose to duel, if it came to that, but he owed no such honour to animals. To duel publicly would be to hurt Delilah and ensure that details of his mother's death were bandied about as salacious gossip; he couldn't bear that.

Thomas Howe had died far easier than he had deserved; but all in all Channon was pleased. He gazed up towards Ishal and returned the salute.

Then charged forward, spitting a nearby Hurlock on the Highever blade.

* * *

On the southern flank of the darkspawn reinforcements, the mages concentrated grimly, working their magic against impossible odds.

That was to say, _Irving_ concentrated grimly, grinding his courage into focus with such urgency that beads of sweat broke from his skin and glittered on his enormous growth of beard. For all the distress Sweeney showed he might have been casting spells in his sleep. Standing to Irving's left, with his eyes closed and an old man's mumble on his lips, he raised his staff and simply let every darkspawn near him fall to his blends of Cone of Cold and Stonefist - trusting, no doubt, that the haste and frenzy of his casting would protect him from a direct attack on his person. Ines - his wife in all but name for more than forty years - stood beside him: casting when he rested, timing her nature-based primal spells to complement his.

On Irving's other side, dying mages and Templars lay together, embraced in a brotherhood of loss. Karl was among them, handsome, grave face empty as a shattered glass. Anders knelt over him, the young man's face pale with grief. Beside him, Greagoir sat with back pressed against an ogre's flung rock, forcing his torso erect. The red froth of a lung wound speckled his lips. The silver hair that had always seemed so metallic, so helmet-like, was lifeless in limp disarray. He coughed violently, then wiped the blood off his armour with the purple sash around his waist. He glared at the stain as though it were a personal affront. Irving literally felt the will of the man - the refusal to concede that his life was draining away. His gaze swept past the battle, out to a view that only he could see. Irving was reminded of the hawks that sometimes landed atop Kinloch Hold - the way their proud eyes claimed the land to its farthest end.

Unable to help him - unable to help any of his colleagues, his friends, his family - Irving forced himself to cast and cast, on and on, when every nerve in his body wailed to flinch away from the howls and snarls and gibbering of the creatures coming at them.

Unhappily, from where he stood he could see clearly that their efforts would not be enough. He watched Alistair, Fergus, Teagan and their men, fighting back-to-back, forming a defensive circle, ever narrower and surrounded by a howling darkness. They didn't stand a chance.

* * *

As soon as they charged the northern flank of the darkspawn reinforcements, Cauthrien saw the situation of Alistair, Fergus and Teagan was desperate. The darkspawn were a many-headed hydra - each time one fell, two more rushed to take its place.

To rush in and draw their attention would be suicide. Yet if she did nothing, they would lose the only remaining Warden on the surface. If the Warden-Commander's mission to the Deep Roads failed, and the Archdemon rose, they would have no-one.

Cauthrien made her choice.

"On me!" she howled, and without waiting to see the order obeyed charged forward. She didn't need to look. The soldiers of Maric's Shield would have followed her to the Fade. She swung the Summer Sword in glittering, perfected arcs. A Genlock backed up, swinging desperately, trying to use its pitted axe as a shield. A single blow nearly cut the creature in half. Cauthrien spun around, catlike, ducking low as a darkspawn charged in with levelled spear. She delivered a back-handed slash while down on one knee, cutting the Hurlock's leg off at mid-thigh as it charged past. She heard the shouts and rallying calls of the men of Maric's Shield, close behind: the elite soldiers gathering men to them in a tight formation, like a smashing fist. Cauthrien became part of the formation, so much more powerful than a mass of individual warriors, and they drove forward into the darkspawn flank. She was more than herself - more than the farmgirl who had watched the Teyrn fight and dreamed of being a hero - the living many-armed spike was a single entity, driven by her will.

Still, they could not hope to win - could only hope to thin out the combat around Alistair and his men, allowing them to fight their way to the shelter of the southern gates. By the time they reached their destination, darkspawn had eroded the unit like water seeping through cracks in rock, breaking them apart to fragments. These were dragged down into the teeming mass. The horde surged over them - swallowed them. Cauthrien fought back to back with two old friends: Durgen and Corwin. As a darkspawn lunged at Corwin she hammered its stolen sword towards the earth. She took a hard blow to her right side from another. Corwin finished the first - she whirled to block the second as it moved to finish her. No space for a swing - she hit out with a pommel strike. It staggered back, skull-like features pulped into a curdled mass of taint and bone.

She did not count the number of creatures the three of the sent to the void, her soldier's mind rejecting the overall, the general, for a razored attention to specific details: a blade to block, an exposed place to strike. Somehow, the entity that was Cauthrien-Corwin-Durgen became four, then ten, as they reached Alistair's men. Alistair, Fergus and Teagan joined them, and they formed a defensive square, letting the horde batter themselves on shields like surf against rock, while steel like the spines of a hedgehog pierced the unwary. In this way, they held on, while Knight Commander Rylock led her men in a charge from the southern gates, pushing toward them.

Cauthrien fought and fought, on and on, the sweat stinging her eyes and the world on fire around her. She went on fighting, long after she had lost her strength and her balance and even her reason. She wore the soulless battle-face that Loghain had drilled into her for more than twenty years.

_...He saw me - he _chose _me. What hero does that for a scrawny farm lass? He gave me the opportunity to make myself more than I dreamed I could be. He looked at me and _knew_..._

A blow for Loghain. A blow for Maric's Shield. And one for Ferelden. Then back to the beginning again. A blow for everyone she had ever loved, every soldier of Ferelden who had ever died.

There was a hole in her side. Her own blood, mixed with the tar-like tainted filth the Hurlocks spread across their blades, seeped out, making the gambeson she wore under chain mail stick to her sweat-drenched skin. She couldn't tell whether it hurt or not, but it made her catch her breath in a way she couldn't escape.

An emissary loomed before her. Its magic knocked her to the ground.

Cauthrien dreaded that fall - knew her wounded side couldn't take it. Fortunately, she landed on the body of a dead Chasind. She rolled onto her back, swept the Summer Sword upward, and took the creature's legs from under it.

It snarled. Even as she watched, its taint-driven magic closed the wounds.

Fergus was standing over her, then, fighting for both of them as the General came on. Blows on all sides; chips of rusted darkspawn armour and iron sword-shards flying. His scar burned as though his life were on fire in his face.

Alistair ran to help him. He didn't even see the Hurlock that loomed behind.

Teagan did. He put up his shield to cover Alistair.

Someone shouted: "My lord Teagan - _watch out_!"

It was too late. Even as Teagan turned, a spear-point burst right through the centre of his chest.

Then - as if someone had opened a window in the sky - came a sudden terrifying rush of rocks and flaming pitch. They slammed down from Ostagar's own battlements, howling torrentially downward over human and darkspawn alike. Cauthrien stared upward at the sky that had changed places with the ground, and saw her own death.

Oh, well. Loghain had said: _Other people tell me what to do. You help me do it. We make a good team._ That was more than enough for any lifetime.

* * *

After Cousland's salute and their private understanding, Nathaniel turned back to the fighting. He felt nothing for the older brother he had barely known - Nathaniel had been a child when he was sent to Kirkwall. The stories of the fall of Highever Thomas had drunkenly related had convinced Nathaniel he was a liability. He put the dead fool from his mind and concentrated on the darkspawn. His archers gave careful supporting fire. Loghain had ordered Voldrik to hold off: catapults were far too dangerous for their allies below. Loghain was a living flame, here and there: organising, directing. Rylock was leading her Templars in a charge out of the main gates, to aid Alistair's army. Rylock looked gaunt; strained and exhausted around the eyes. Yet she had an air of worth, almost of triumph, as if she knew she was doing the right thing.

For some reason, Arl Eamon chose this moment to say: "You know: my wife begged Teagan and I to remain at Castle Redcliffe. She said what happened had made us too frail for such going's-on. If we fail to return, she'll be angry." Without warning, his old eyes spilled tears. He turned and blundered around with an old man's fumbling slowness; a teary husband's confusion.

But when they heard the cry: "My lord Teagan - _watch out_!" he sprang from the battlements as if galvanised. The familiar name wrenched him out of his customary stupor, brought him to his feet crying madly: "Teagan? _Teagan_? _Oh, my brother_!"

He had no idea what was going on: his eyes held nothing but exhaustion and distress. The broken part of his mind only made him urgent; it didn't make him sane. Sobbing: "I'll save you!" he rushed to to the courtard below – to Voldrik's trebuchet. He had shoved the startled crew aside before anyone knew what he was about. Aiming it into the writhing chaos below, he began firing. There was nothing to stop the tremendous and convulsive tremor that split the earth below, scattering broken men along with broken darkspawn. It tore apart the stone of Ostagar's outer southern wall, reducing it to rubble.

By now Loghain had reached him. He knocked Eamon out with a mailed fist. It was a mercy - Eamon wasn't conscious to see the retreating soldiers streaming through the gate, carrying his brother's body. Full of terrible defeat, Loghain hardly noticed that the inner walls remained. That was a tiny consolation: almost an insult in the face of the general ruin.

The withdrawal of Alistair's and Cauthrien's forces into the southern gates of Ostagar was stubborn, starred with heroism. They knowingly abandoned no wounded or dead. Alistair carried Teagan; Fergus carried Cauthrien. A group of mages and Templars carried their dying Knight Commander. Yard by yard, they gave ground, while Rylock and Loghain led their men out to cover the withdrawal. At the courtyard, they held for the siege weapons and hospital wagons to cross before following. From the battlements, Nathaniel's archers covered the final retreat.

They were now trapped inside Ostagar, cut off from aid, surrounded on all sides.

Ferelden soldiers, Templars, mages and Chasind milled in many-coloured confusion. Two brothers found the other they had thought dead. Channon's eyes went wide - he rushed to where Fergus knelt over a dead soldier. Fergus looked up, bleary-eyed, blood-spattered - and gave a great roar. Then he thundered to his feet, swept his slighter brother up into an enormous hug, laughed and cried.

Those watching nearby - some wounded, all bone-weary, each battle-hardened - saw that Channon wept as well. And for some reason none of them found it appropriate to laugh at this deplorable unmasculinity.

"Let me through - I'm a healer!" Wynne cried. She was joined by the surviving mages of the Circle. Irving was bent over Greagoir. Sweeney and Ines were leaning on each other. Anders was staring blankly off into some thought of his own. When Wynne reached the Knight Commander Greagoir waved her off:

"You can't get the point out without killing me. Don't waste the time."

"I have to try. My credo..."

"Has no place here. I'm dying. Don't trouble yourself."

Loghain walked among his men, reassuring the wounded - promising the dying he would support their families. This was a vow Loghain held sacred.

When he saw Cauthrien's body among the dead, he covered his face with his hands.

As he stood looking down at the familiar face, staring upward into a future that was no longer hers to claim, he tried to speak - to rally the remaining defenders - organise them. But he couldn't; he was breathing too hard. The sight of Cauthrien's death hit him harder than he was prepared for; dealt him a blow for which he had thought he had been braced and now realised he wasn't. Loghain wasn't young anymore. He had been alone for a long time - since Maric and Rowan had died; comforted - or at least understood - only by Cauthrien. His chest began to heave, and he fought for air urgently, in great gasps. To stifle the sound, he clamped his hands over his mouth, against the sides of his nose; but he couldn't restrain his harsh respiration - his labour against grief.

The cost of his efforts to save Ferelden kept on growing. Without Cauthrien, his Night Elves, his soldiers, there would be no Ferelden to defend; no General to be so profligate with the blood of those who loved him.

A hand tapped him on the shoulder. He whirled round to see Maric standing next to him: Maric looking as he had done when the rebel army was annihilated at West Hill.

"It was the right fight; for the right reasons. Those soldiers understood," he said in a rough attempt at comfort, "They bought us a chance. We've got to figure out what to do with it."

The image cleared - Loghain saw Alistair beside him. Another time he would have been embarrassed to be caught like that. For now, he had other concerns - they both did. He nodded. And so, having nothing more they could do for the dead, and plenty they had to do for the living, the two moved to organise the defence.

* * *

The night before entering the Deep Roads, Ser Otto dreamed.

…_He stood on a vast and featureless plain of misty grey, as though submerged beneath the chill, drifting waters of a lake. Out of that formless void a shape began to coalesce: a slender, swift-moving form graceful as a bird. It took a moment before he recognized Boann. She whirled and spun, her fair hair blowing in an unfelt wind. He saw her mouth curl in delighted laughter as she beckoned him forward…his heart soared to watch her unfettered dance._

_Boann swept along before him, silently pleading with him to follow…to follow! All his will called out to her…he found himself moving without walking, drifting closer. A new shape began to form out of the emptiness: a silver tree of liquid light. Boann stretched out her palms to cup the droplets that fell from its leaves within a silver chalice._

The Sangreal_, he thought. _Rilian's Cure_._

_He tried to take her hand but could not. The grey mist pulled them apart. He fought it, knowing desperately that he must not lose her._

_He was tiring, as a swimmer tires far out at sea. He reached for her hand and felt a touch - feather-light - in his. Then he slipped closer to the grey…and then the grey passed into blackness. __A colossal wave at his back - a wall of black oil a mile high - advanced towards him. Its shadow crept towards the silver chalice. He turned to face it - though he knew it must annihilate him when it crashed._

_It never crashed at all. It engulfed him and forced him to bear its weight..._

…_He was standing before Grand Cleric Odila, in the magnificent Denerim Chantry, Boann beside him._

_"You are become one, but your strength is multiplied, not added, because in all things you will be more than two. Swear to each other that you are husband and wife in heart as well as in mind, in truth as well as in law."_

_A vast circle of their friends and comrades passed before them. Each carried a wedding gift. _

_The pile of gifts grew larger - he turned to his radiant bride and blushed. There were flowers, baskets of fruit, and even a skyball such as he had owned as a child. Even as he reached to take it, his eye was caught by the flowers. They were rotting before his eyes, blackening and curling up like skin shrivelled in flame. The flowers dried to ashy flakes; the fruit bloomed with mould __and then diminished to grey dust. As he watched in horror, even the wedding guests - all the knights and soldiers of Denerim who had been his friends - were stripped of flesh in heartbeats by a pulsing mass of squirming black grubs. He fought to keep his footing in the roiling decay. Where was Boann? Where was she! She would be consumed like the others unless he rescued her! He strode forward, shovelling through the squirming dark mass…but he couldn't find her…unless that was a wink of gold, down there in the abyss. He sank deeper into the dark-veined womb of rotten earth, arms reaching…reaching for the slender hand with its golden wedding ring…_

When he woke, sweating and shivering, he had no time to feel the horror; it faded like wisps of smoke. He joined Jowan, Aveline, Carver, Alim, Rowland and Oghren; together, they followed Rilian and the Legion down into the tunnels beneath Ishal.

These were alive and teeming with sound, smell, sense - even colour. He caught the faint drip of moisture from the ceiling - felt its droplets on the patches of his scalp that still had feeling. The rock itself seemed to sweat the stink of taint. In front of him, the pounding boots of the Legion of the Dead created a storm-sense, giving shape to the Void as the Maker had done. His Warden senses were just beginning to come awake - hastened, perhaps, by what they faced. He had always been able to experience the glow of Mana within his fellow Templars and their mage charges as sight. A Templar shone a dim cobalt-blue. A mage burned like a white sun. He noted with some amusement that Oghren blazed too - the indescribable scent of Aqua Magus tickled his nostrils.

He politely refused when Oghren offered him some. To someone who took no more than the customary one vial of lyrium per day, Oghren's mixture was as fierce as one-hundred-percent proof. Murder.

"What's it like, being a Templar?" the Dwarven Warden asked.

Puzzled, Ser Otto answered, "Do you mean our training or our beliefs?"

"No," the dwarf chortled, "To always have to wear a skirt!"

Ser Otto had the feeling they were going to get along fine. Unlike so many of his fellows, Oghren treated him no differently than anyone else. Everyone was treated to the Berserker's unique brand of wit.

Beside him, Jowan fought hard to keep up. He clutched Ser Otto's mailed arm in a death-grip, explaining he was afraid to leave the blind Templar behind, in case Ser Otto got lost. Ser Otto did not contradict him. Jowan had always felt different to other mages. The darker, thicker current of Blood Magic - a dull red trickle like oil, or treacle - had flowed like sludge beneath the silvery Mana. Since Ser Otto had worked with him, this had dimmed and faded. He admired how hard Jowan worked to repress his addiction. Now, the Joining replaced that current with something similar, yet different: black sludge, slow-crawling, like a stagnant lake in winter. It was in all the Wardens - in Ser Otto himself - and he suspected Rilian must be right in her belief that Blood Magic, demons and taint all had the same beginnings. They were linked, intimately.

Jowan wove a tapestry of descriptions: the dank gloom of the tunnels, the way Rowland and Aveline's faces looked a bit peaky after darkspawn-infested dreams, the way Rilian marched beside Kardol, as warrior and equal, so focused she seemed a mechanism of overdriven steel and wire. Most of all, he listened as Jowan described the Legion:

"They're dressed in golden plate, spiked all over - they remind me of a whole battalion of hedgehogs! The plate is painted with octagons - like the runes the Tranquil use - and they're carrying shortspears, shields, axes and maces. Their warpaint is damned creepy: they all look like fanged skulls!" Jowan shuddered, "They remind me of those berserk Chasind."

A Legion warrior named Jukka overheard him and laughed uproariously. "And who do you think taught the Chasind? Have you not heard the tale of Luthias Dwarfson!"

Ser Otto, who admired both peoples, considered this carefully. He knew the Chasind painted their faces in anticipation of death, believing they fought their way from the Fade to the Maker's side. Or were killed again, and became lost spirits, destined to haunt the world of men. But when those Berserker warriors threw themselves into battle, it was with the knowledge that they _may_ die. They might live, to a grand old age with many children to carry on their names and stories. When the Legion went to battle, it was with the certain knowledge they _must _die. And there would be no comfort. They neither expected nor yearned for the Maker's embrace. Only that of cold, hard stone. Ser Otto admired a belief that fought for no reward, whether in this life or the next. He wished he had more time to learn of these heroes. No wonder they had taught their traditions to a tribe outside Orzammar: otherwise the knowledge would have died with them. The Dwarven Shaperate kept no records of how they fought, how they died. Only a list of their names, carved into stone. Someone must bring these stories to those who would listen.

"The blue lanterns they carry are bobbing like one solid Dwarven river," Jowan went on. Ser Otto smiled: grateful for Jowan's way with words - grateful that he took the time to translate the world for him. Suddenly, the knight felt a cool current brush his skin, his forehead colder than the back of his neck, proving the space in front was fed by an air-duct.

"We're coming into an open space now - looks like…like…like the basement of Kinloch Hold! Full of phylacteries, and blood, and…oh!"

Ser Otto felt it too. A writhing tendril at the edges of his mind: a deep inward prickle of alien energy.

"Maker damn you, Architect!" Rilian roared. An ecstasy of clashes, the grate of steel on steel, a sound like a thousand voices all screaming in unison as the darkspawn rushed the Legion.

Even the sighted Wardens stayed out of the Legion's formation. Ser Otto had studied enough about them to know they practiced a defensive formation similar to the Tevinter _testudo_. Their shields formed a giant turtle: their spears thrust outward like the spines of a hedgehog. The Wardens - all except for Oghren - were too tall to fit correctly. And Oghren was too undisciplined.

"On me!" Ser Otto cried, and the Wardens rallied around him. Otto, Aveline, Rowland and Carver formed a defensive triangle around Jowan and Alim, allowing the mage and mage-archer to fire with impunity over their heads. Ser Otto was very, very grateful to find Rilian not among them. He knew what she was going to do - what her priority would be. He blessed her for it.

Oghren, of course, fought with neither strategy nor pattern. Such was anathema to his nature. His war howl echoed and re-echoed like a thousand drums around the chamber.

Dream and reality seemed almost completely interwoven, Ser Otto's personal blackness awash in sound and writhing movement, but he carried on with the resolve that had seen him through many dreadful battles against Blood Mages. The darkspawn showed to his senses as a black mass of veins: a network of rotten capillaries that powered movement. What he could _not_ see was the breadth and shape of the weapons each carried - all different. Measuring thrusts determined the extent of each. This was not unlike the chess he played with Jowan. He remembered the board exactly - Jowan called out his moves - and the knight saw the developing strategy in his mind as a series of discrete images. Here, too, knowledge of sword-craft and anatomy told him how and where the spawn would place their weapons. Blade at blade, he killed two.

He heard Aveline's swift, sharp grunt of pain as a darkspawn slipped past her defences. Ser Otto put out his shield to cover her. A moment later, Jowan's magical bolt sizzled into the Genlock who would have caught him under his outstretched arm.

"Shift sides," he told Aveline. He had come up on her right side - her strong side - she needed him at her left. A shuffle as they swapped places. He felt the current of Jowan's healing magic; heard her soft sigh, like falling leaves. He felt her movement at his back, a shifting from leg to leg more menacing than nervous. Then her quiet mutter of explanation: "Nine Hurlocks around us; led by some kind of general. It's wearing volcanic aurum- never seen anything like it."

Ser Otto nodded. Even as Jowan withdrew his healing, knowing it had been enough, the Templar loosed his own powers. Jowan's had the quality of lamplight or firelight - it would burn as well as heal. The Templar Smite was pure anti-magic, light only, like scouring wind and water. Except - anti-magic was not quite right. It was more like the source of all magic, that could dispel what it had birthed. Lyrium - the Waters of the Fade. Ser Otto's power sent the darkspawn reeling backwards, hissing.

He felt the touch of their own magic - the foulness on their breath - their thoughts through the black web eroded by decay into shapes of horror. He felt the weight of their despair and hatred like stones pressed into his flesh. Beyond them, to the west, was the hollow sound of water dropped into a pit, a long way down. Far below came unspeakable sounds as something groaned and writhed, as if scorched. Then Rilian's voice - the beacon of her lyrium-traced sword - as she sought to give The Mother peace. Ser Otto just had time to send all his prayers, all his hope, when he felt Aveline lunge away from his back, and nearly fell backwards into her. That stagger saved him; the blade aimed at his throat missed, and he had his shield back up by then.

His mace clashed on three - he was too busy to calculate his chances. He swung, smashed, swung again; a darkspawn axe lunged too far for his shield and he felt it burn along his side. He sagged to one knee; another slash caught his right arm, slicing deep. His fingers opened; his mace fell. He ducked, grabbed a darkspawn boot, and yanked; a thud as the creature fell, and scrabbled back out of reach. The Templar's arm and side itched, intolerably, as the burn of Jowan's magic coursed through him, knitting flesh. Aveline's sword sang loudly, ringing a wild music off her attackers' blades. Ser Otto was back in the fight, smashing his mace into the first darkspawn he sensed. He fought through towards the leader - the general - taking another slashing blade across his shoulders.

The general felt like no darkspawn Ser Otto had ever encountered. Its manic, insane howl raised the hairs on the back of his neck. It was a quick, darting shadow, like black flame, and it wielded a pair of daggers that scorched its own skin. Ser Otto smelled the burning - the tar of taint - the crisp purity of Silverite: an alloy of lyrium. Even in madness and agony, the creature Rilian had described as The First would not give them up.

Ser Otto understood. The First had once been a Warden Commander. Even after six months of the Architect's experimentation, he had retained remnants of his former self. Driven to such lorn heroism by the fact that he alone knew of the Architect's design, and must warn others. After passing the truth to Rilian, he had sunk into the blackness. And Ser Otto, who admired heroism, found he could not hate this creature. No - not even though he knew The First had been the one to violate Boann and create The Mother. To father The Children. He focused solely on engaging him, trusting Jowan, Aveline and the others to guard his back. Fought with all the skill trained into him; muscle memory that had lasted beyond sight.

When The First fell, it was almost gladly, as if the buried part of him approved of this ending. Uncaring of the shrieks and echoing howls of battle that raged all around him, Ser Otto knelt down, brushed his gauntleted hand lightly over the craters and hollows of the eroded face, closed its eyes.

"You are guiltless. Peace be with you at last."

* * *

Rilian looked down upon a vast, roiling black mass of uncounted multitudes. The decaying white faces of darkspawn - shrunken inward like the petals of rotting roses - seemed to rise and fall amid the darkness. An ocean of taint, the dimness of consciousness crawling sluggishly within. Writhing, decaying, spawning. The corrupted drones served one being: the breeder. The Mother. Black tentacles reared like towering waves - swept vast swathes of the battling Dwarves and darkspawn down into the pit. Rilian could see the Legion fighting with perfect discipline: forming the turtle-shape with their shields, thrusting outward with shortspears…and it was not enough to save them. Behind the Legion, her own Wardens formed a Circle, with the mage and archer in the middle. She saw Ser Otto's death-struggle with the creature that had once been Duncan. Then saw an enormous Hurlock swing a two-handed maul towards his back. Ser Otto barely turned in time. He faced it fearlessly, joined by Rowland and Aveline. The thing took Rowland in the chest. The young knight crumpled like a leaf in winter, collapsing backward. Then a terrible sound from Aveline: a sobbing howl so raw with pain it sounded bloody. She collapsed forwards over her splintered kneecap. Ser Otto pushed her behind him, fighting on - but she could see he had no hope against this monster.

Then Jowan's mind-blast altered the odds.

She could not help them - could not even look back to watch. All her attention was needed to keep her balance as she inched with agonizing slowness across the crumbling inner ledge of the pit: half-ape, half-acrobat, wholly-insane. She stood on the tenuous perch and tore her eyes from the abyss below. She had a sense of demand from the writhing void: vertigo threatened to pitch her forward.

Half-buried within the walls of the pit were the fleshy sacks that contained half-formed Children, umbilicus-joined by tendrils to The Mother. Fang sliced open the nearest, and her mind spasmed away from the horror that spilled out. Not before the worst of all: the recognition of the Child - innocent child? - as offspring to Boann and Duncan. Fang ended the life of the pitiful, sickening thing, and her own vomit stained the stone.

_Do I have the right to end a life of gross deformity, when all the days will be lived in pain? I do not know. I only know I have the duty…_

At this, The Mother screamed, shrilly, and turned its head on that long, pale, glistening neck. White, delicate, like the stem of a flower. Atop the unspeakable gluttonous hulk below, the trunk was still that of a woman. Pale, perfect breasts, luminous skin, slender shoulders. Rilian looked past the horror to the fractured dark eyes…

_My friend. Even now, my friend. She still has the most beautiful eyes…_

"Boann?" she called, softly.

The waking of expressive soul from subsuming madness encapsulated all the horror of Boann's violation: she moved backward through time. Her memories played out from the day of Ostagar to the present, in unbearable clarity:

"Do it to Odila…not me…Odila. Violate her…rip her arms off, I don't care…just not that filth _PLEASE_!"

Rasping, almost sobbing, Rilian called her name.

"Maker…Maker…Maker…help me, Rilian! Oh Maker, help me. Drowning in decay. Get me out of this prison…this twisted shell…my body has betrayed me…I want RID of it!"

It was a woman's soul she saw there - dark eyes wide in human fear and horror - Rilian looked into vast wells of grief. Boann gazed her entire soul into Rilian's, and Rilian had to fight not to crawl off into some dark corner of her own mind and never look out of her own eyes again. Didn't a mortal being have enough of their own grief, that they must also take the full measure of another's? But that was what it meant to _be _mortal: to share another's pain as the only thing one could do for them…she could not turn away. She absorbed the fear and pain and horror like a vast black wave. It engulfed her and forced her to bear its weight. This was love's terrifying promise: that it could expand to contain all imaginable grief.

She held up the bracelet Rylock had given her: the bracelet made from rock of the Deep Roads, that glowed with its own light. The dark eyes recognized it. Rilian knew Boann had been given it by Mother Ailis when she had entered the Chantry as a child of ten. When Boann woke in the dorms from smothering dreams, and had needed to know what remained of the night's sentence, she had consulted it instead of an hourglass. She had been orphaned after her father's death of third-stage syphilis, after the disease had taken his mind and transformed his body to a mass of putrefaction that made those about him retch and vomit. It had made Boann very strong - was the source of her words to Rylock after the Templar's personal horror - and her words to Rilian after Adaia's death. Rilian held out the bracelet - and in her other hand she held out Fang. She didn't look downward to where the taint had turned her friend's body into something not even syphilis could imagine, only into her eyes. Boann bared her throat for the strike.

"Goodbye, my friend. I hope the Maker gave you strength. I love Him too. I shall see you in His light."

* * *

Rilian did not know how long she remained, staring into the opaque dead eyes of Boann, watching the blind, slow-crawling trickle of taint seep from the slashed throat. It was only when a dark prickle of alien energy flared along her nerves, sang in the channels of her spine, that she tore her eyes away. Across the black divide - at the same level as her own - the Architect stood, back to an inky mouth of tunnel that opened to the west. Fifty feet below, a wider tunnel fed the pit itself, dark water sloshing from some unknown source. There was no way across from either tunnel - but Rilian knew with despair that the creature wouldn't need one. It could float like a black angel across the roiling pit - or simply blast her with magic from where it stood.

She braced for death, refusing to be snuffed out without facing her enemy.

That bone-dry, inflectionless voice, all strictest scholarship, said mildly: "You have ended The Mother and The First - but there will be others. I have enough of the Joining mixture to make a hundred Wardens - and the means to accelerate their Calling. They will create new Mothers."

Raising her chin, Rilian screamed:

"All your creatures are born to die! Do you know the origins of Taint? Do you know how the first of my people sought to preserve immortality by drinking the blood of the Tree of Life? The Tree in which all worlds are held - the Tree that the Chantry calls the Golden City. Its living veins are pure lyrium: the Waters of the Fade. Transcendent perversion - and for that they were cursed to live forever beyond the Veil, jealous of the life they could see, but never touch. But their corrupted blood remained, seeping into the dying tree, tainting the Black City - lying in wait for the magisters to bring the taint to earth. Your kind were never more than hosts - biological machines driven by infection. Lyrium and silverite - the closest substance to the blood of the Tree - will forever purge and burn you. You know no love and can breed only by perverting life, never by creating it. And now - because of your experiments - the pestilence of Taint will spread without control. The Mothers, breeding Children to become Broodmothers, will overrun Thedas in a generation. But with all humanity sterile and tainted there can be no more Fathers. Your demise will come from the famine of your kind."

_"NO!"_ She did not know how loudly the Architect screamed the word - or if it was even loud at all - but the negation was flung into the void with all the intensity of which the decaying voice was capable. But behind it the knowledge was already there, desperately denied at heart - for the Architect could manage basic calculations. A Broodmother bred only once and died soon after - but in nine months all the life the woman would ever have held in her body, throughout her lifetime, would be born - and matured within a year. She saw the knowledge in the brilliant pearlescent eyes - wide and fractured with blazing, jealous hatred.

_"THEN NO-ONE!"_

The air itself seemed to thicken, the storm of grief and rage building, building, with a riptide of desperation added. Rilian felt it as a hammer to her mind, thundering through the web of taint that linked them, She staggered at the blast, but would not back down. As Blood Magic had once tried to do to her, she hijacked the link - sent her thoughts down the glistening taint-crawling strands like a spider - slid into the alien mind, cold as stone, and set every nerve on fire. Her mental voice cracked, whip-sharp:

"Just because you can't have the life you yearn for, you're going to kill it everywhere, is that it? So kill, then! You have the power. But know _what _you are killing…"

Rilian had always been able to transmit imagination the way other women could transmit desire. She had used it to share, inspire, rally. But now she used it to wound - chose her images like knives, thrown one after the other at their target. All Rilian's memories: a lifetime of silver strands of love and joy and family, played out before the alien mind, danced like silver fire above the void.

The Architect reeled backward as if from a blow, put long, attenuated arms up as if to shield itself. In her own mind, Rilian felt the howl of grief, vast as an ocean, as if a whole universe wept for loss.

"_Take it back!" _it whispered - in what in a human would have been the hot breath of strangled weeping_, "This dirty little shred of life! I throw it off gladly like the filth it is_!"

Rilian felt the crackle of magic in the air - a clear fire that hurt her eyes, burned her flesh, so that the bright air writhed and pressed smothering in on her like a weighted wind. A dark-red cloud of flame balled, billowed outward - a cataclysm that scorched, not Rilian, but the teeming mass below. Smoke and vapour surged from the pit as the drones within - the feeders of the Mother - were twisted to charnel horrors of bone and wet gristle. The thing that had been Boann burned too - the monstrous bloated body blackening and curling like a spider in flame.

Rilian stood, pressed against the terrifyingly fragile ledge, as the firestorm howled beneath, eyes shut, lungs scorched. An eternity seemed to pass before the storm cleared - and when she opened her eyes the merest fraction, she saw the Architect had gone.

She cowered on the ledge, the pain of burned face and hands seeping slowly into consciousness, not daring to look down into the void - unable to climb up. Then an incongruously chirpy vice floated down:

"I've got you! Catch this. You're safe."

Rilian caught the rope that Sigrun had flung down, and called up: "I'm wearing armour. You'll never be able to…"

Sigrun only scoffed, and the tough little woman, braced against a slab of rock in the laboratory above, began to pull.

Rilian hit the edge of the pit and willing hands helped her over. She landed in an ungainly scramble - the scrape of the stone raw pain against the burns - and emerged into a scene of scarcely less devastation than the one below. Twenty members of the Legion were slain - many more would never fight again. Rilian exclaimed in outrage when these bared their throats for Kardol to finish them, but Sarela gripped her forearm so tightly it ripped a gasp of pain from her.

"Where would they go, Warden? Orzammar? None of us can return there. It is better so."

Sigrun was hunched over the body of her friend, Jukka. Her face was turned away from them, her voice strangely muffled when she muttered:

"You'd think I'd have learned to accept it by now. In the Legion, death looms over us constantly like a dirty uncle."

"C..commander?" Rilian whirled - and her heart thudded painfully. Rowland was half-sitting, supported by Carver and Ser Otto, with Jowan working over him. Jowan's face was streaked with tears. "I can't do it…knitting flesh, yes...not bone. I'm not Wynne. I wish I'd listened to her!" Rowland's chest was smashed - and from the dark red froth that speckled his lips, Rilian could see the broken ribs had pierced his lungs.

"I'm here, Rowland," she murmured, kneeling beside him.

"I…I wish…I could have fought at your side…just once..." Rowland's breath trailed off in a bubbling sigh. He did not take another.

_I _should _have fought beside him! If I had, he might still be alive_... She took in the tortured form of Aveline - alive, but with one knee crushed, unable to stand without support. Jowan had done what he could for the pain, but he lacked the skill or knowledge to do more. He looked up:

"Commander - we can still get her to Wynne. Ser Otto and I can go."

"Leave me," Aveline gritted through clenched teeth, "You can't spare the men."

Rilian thought rapidly. "We're a day's journey from Ishal. If you go back, it could be into victory or defeat. No way to tell." Then she squared her shoulders. "But I trust Loghain." She moved rapidly, searching through the remains of the laboratory even as she felt the blue wash of Jowan's magic soothe her burns. She gathered notes written in a spidery, frenetic scrawl - and wondered at the searing determination that had led one born into a taint-stinking, filth-drowning brood to learn reading. One passage stood out starkly:

…_The blood. The blood is always the key…_

"The Architect was wrong," she whispered, so low she didn't think the others heard her, "It was the Blood that rose to create demons and taint. It takes something else to heal evil."

Sigrun slipped a hand into hers and squeezed. "I was told that evil always triumphs because good is stupid," she confided - and Rilian startled herself by bursting out into a half-sob, half-laugh.

"Andraste chose sacrifice over power. She knew that evil can be healed only by love," Ser Otto murmured. He walked with unerring steps to the edge of the pit. Rilian gasped in shock. But the knight had the blind man's sense of open spaces. He stopped at its edge, head bowed - and Rilian could only bless the maleficar who had taken his sight. So, the Maker had some mercy after all. She joined him and they held each other. This time, it was Rilian who whispered the words of prayer:

_"Here lies the Abyss, the well of all souls. From whose emerald waters doth life begin anew. Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you. In my arms lies eternity."_

"Rilian," Ser Otto said quietly, "Let me be the one to go on. You go back with Jowan and the others." He did not need to see her shake her head to sense the movement. "In the deepest tunnels," he pointed out, "I will be less blind than you."

"It isn't that I don't think you capable of defeating Urthemiel," Rilian murmured, "And I know you wish to be beside the woman you love. But no-one but you could convince the Chantry to allow this kind of research. To cure the taint - redeem what my people did wrong, millennia ago - ensure no other suffers as Boann suffered. That is love. Maker, it hurts! But that is love."

As Rilian, Carver, Alim, Oghren and the Legion marched onward, her last sight was of Ser Otto guiding his small group. A blind man led them home.

* * *

Through the taint that linked them, the Architect was aware when the Warden Commander chose to send three of her Wardens back towards the structure called Ishal. He followed her thoughts onward to her destination: Ortan Thaig. He waited until the web stopped tingling with their presence - until they became faint dark smears within his consciousness - and then not even that. Then he returned to the pit - to the blackened hulk and its dead feeders below.

_How strange_, he thought, the bright bubbles of the memories of the woman named Rilian floating within the sea of taint, _that we share an exile._ Rilian had been a stranger among her people because, even as a child, she had heard the Song. Not the Call of the Old Gods but the Source itself it merely echoed: the faint notes of unearthly music she had called "the Spark". It had made her impractical, made her neglect the things that mattered to her people, made her a being who always saw the world a little differently to others.

He had been the same. An alien even among the feral vat from which his brethren sprang. A watcher, observing his kind from one layer removed. Except _he_ had been an alien for _not _hearing the Song. Perhaps, though, he and Rilian had sought the same thing. He, too, had yearned for the Source rather than its corrupted echo. The plans, goals, dreams of the society his kind would build had burned in his mind, sweet and bitter as the fruit of the tree of knowledge was said to be. But Rilian had been right - it was not possible to create life from death. The world he had sought had never been theirs to claim. He had never seen this so clearly. He was a stranger in the eyes of the Maker.

It would take several more blasts of his cataclysm to ensure the filth below was cleansed. He had been forced to wait until Rilian was safely away. Now he gathered his powers. Unlike all others of his kind, he did not cast through taint alone. He was connected to the Fade. He knew what it was to dream. From there, he had stared up at the Black City forever on the horizon and wondered at it. From there, he had contacted his first human study, First Enchanter Remille. From Remille and from Warden-Commander Bregan he had come to understand the darker side of human nature completely - but not love.

The tainted air cleared for a moment and then a brilliant column of pure, sterilizing light a million times more powerful than flame poured down. Everything within the pit was gone, obliterated. Even the rock itself was turned to translucent diamond.

Purged.

The Architect recalled his own words to Rilian: "_What would I have do to make you trust me? Kill the Mother - kill every one of my kind_?"

She had said: "_Even that would not be enough. The darkspawn I trust is the one who kills himself_."

The air was silent, still, waiting for his choice.

* * *

_Song inspirations were:_

_Rilian before the dawn: Emeli Sande - Heaven_

_Rylock and Boann: Abide With Me (I like Emeli Sande's version)_

_The Architect's plan: Simon and Garfunkel - The Sound Of Silence_

_AN: I know I promised this would be the final chapter, but there's one more to come. I suspect many will need a break at this point. I know I do._


	24. Chapter 24: The Well Of All Souls

_Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,_  
_Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,_  
_Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,_  
_And towards our distant rest began to trudge._  
_Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,_  
_But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;_  
_Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots_  
_Of gas shells dropping softly behind._

_Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,_  
_Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,_  
_But someone still was yelling out and stumbling_  
_And floundering like a man in fire or lime. -_  
_Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,_  
_As under a green sea, I saw him drowning._  
_In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,_  
_He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning._

_If in some smothering dreams you too could pace_  
_Behind the wagon that we flung him in,_  
_And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,_  
_His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,_  
_If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood_  
_Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,_  
_Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud_  
_Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, -_  
_My friend, you would not tell with such high zest_  
_To children ardent for some desperate glory,_  
_The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est _  
_Pro patria mori._

Wilfred Owen

Knight Commander Greagoir sweated on his bed. Wynne sat beside him in the hospital they'd set up in the old temple. Warden blood had killed the taint that writhed outward from the spear-point's penetration - but the red froth that speckled his lips told of a killing wound nonetheless. Rylock strode into the ward as soon as she was able. She heard Wynne renew her argument for attempting to get the spear-point out so she could heal him, but he rejected it with an angry mutter. "The blood loss will kill me. I need time to say what I have to before I die."

Rylock knelt down beside him. She said: "You must chance the surgery. Kinloch Hold needs you."

Greagoir shook his head. "No. I need you."

The dark suspicion flitting across Rylock's face amused Greagoir. He tried to laugh, but it broke down into a coughing fit. A drink of water helped, and he went on, "I wouldn't ask you to give me the sword of mercy. I've got a _really_ hard job for you. I want you to take command of the mages and Templars of the Circle. Not only in battle - but afterward. Mother Hannah of Redcliffe wants the Circle rebuilt at the Temple of the Ashes."

Calmly, rationally, Rylock argued. She was far better suited to hunting Blood Mages than spoon-feeding mage children. She intended to lead an Exalted March against the darkspawn. Greagoir lay with his eyes shut, unmoving. Rylock wasn't even sure he was awake until the man gave a shuddering sigh and said: "Twenty years ago you warned me about First Enchanter Remille. I didn't listen. But my real mistake was not to keep you on after what you did to Aneirin. If I had, instead of sending you to Kirkwall, you might have learned another way. Twenty years on and it's all happened again: one Blood Mage escapes...followed by an uprising. Again, the blame was mine. I acted too late to stop Jowan. Worse: I broke our own laws when I made Amell Tranquil. He was a Harrowed mage - he should have been imprisoned for a first offence. I did it because Irving convinced me it was necessary...but _he _was convinced by Uldred - and _how_, I would not like to guess. Uldred knew the outrage would empower the Libertarian cause, and his rebellion. Nothing good comes when Templars break their own laws - that threatens the rights of all mages, and they have no reason to trust us. Unless we find a way to get things moving in the right direction, history is always going to repeat itself. I want to hear you say that's true before I die."

Rylock bolted to her feet. "Such manipulation is unworthy! I intend to follow the Chant. Only that. I won't be tricked or shamed into following another Knight Commander's goals." _Never again..._

Greagoir opened his eyes. "You'll do it. Because it's right. Not the same way I would, but you'll do it. We're no more alike than black and white, but we want the same things. Now let me rest."

For several seconds Rylock stood over him, clenched fists working furiously. She was in a positively foul mood as she spun on her heel and stalked for the door.

Towards her new command.

* * *

Greagoir died not long afterwards. A wounded Chasind warrior, one of Fergus' men, lay in the hospital bed beside him. He stared thoughtfully into the candlelit dimness. Then he repeated the ritual reserved for a tribesman who died well: "Go easily. Take our respect on your journey. Please leave your courage for those of us who still fight." He wasn't sure why he felt compelled to say those words for a member of the Order who persecuted the Chasind for harbouring magic-users, but he felt better for having done so.

* * *

The defence was wounded. The rupture was small. So, thought Loghain, was the head of an arrow. It killed, nonetheless.

The darkspawn had surrounded Ostagar, attacking from the damaged southern wall, the western gate, and from Lothering Forest. The General seemed to have changed position: moving west where the defence was stronger - allowing the ogres to complete the destruction to the south. Cauthrien's doomed charge had saved Alistair and his men, but it meant they no longer blocked the route northward. The darkspawn could veer away and surge toward Denerim at any time.

The night was shattered by the crash of yet another boulder. Walls that had been built to withstand arrows, fire, and even battering rams were no match for the ogres: Loghain counted a living wall of at least nine. Twice, they struck the large, illuminating torch-brackets. Spilled oil created a heavy soup-like haze, floating atop the darkness. Three men, huddled immediately opposite the impact, were ripped by shards of stone shearing off the inside surface. Ragged, spinning like leaves, they fell to the ground below like bloody dolls. That section of the wall's top collapsed, taking out battlewalk.

On the top floor of Ishal, Loghain looked out over the intervening clear area at the deep crescent knocked out of the stonework. Through it, he saw the southern arm of the horde pouring through. Dworkin and the archers lobbed Blackpowder jars and missiles downward. The range was too close for catapults and they could not use the trebuchet without further damaging the fortress and killing their own men. The first battle-mad darkspawn ignored arrows and missiles to clamber through the gap in the outer wall. Screaming unintelligibly, they appeared in the courtyard like creatures boiling up from the Abyss. Others, totally oblivious to anything else, scrabbled at the edges of stone as they had dug for the Old God, further widening the breach. To the north, the darkspawn were shadowy, hidden by fir trees. To the west, the cloud of taint spread by the Hurlock General was a roiling purple mass that shrouded the view like smoke.

Loghain was about to command the southern defence - but Rylock put a gauntleted hand up to stop him. Instinct told him the mixture of contemptuous fury and genuine dread disfiguring her was more important for the moment. She said: "That stink that burns the eyes of my men and makes them choke - that's taint, isn't it? Spread by the General's magic."

"Yes. It poisons the air around the creature."

For a moment, Loghain thought he saw the gloss of panic tighten on Rylock's features. She had believed her Templars capable of countering the General's magic - but they had no abilities that worked against taint. Then she was the Knight-Commander. "That means that you, I, and Warden Alistair are the only ones immune. When we reach him, I'll hold the abomination off while my Templars and mages attack at range." She spun without hesitation, racing to spread that word. It was just in time. Templars were backing away from the afflicted area, discovering their powers were useless. Some dragged wounded or tainted comrades. Even as Loghain watched, one threw down his sword of mercy and fled.

Loghain looked away from her and was surprised to see Nathaniel had come up undetected. The young Howe said: "If the creatures get past Lothering Forest, Denerim is doomed."

Loghain disliked it when people pointed out the obvious - but he saw Nathaniel had something else in mind.

"The forest is wood. With Dworkin's Blackpowder jars, added to magic, I can burn it. Then be on my way to South Reach to warn them."

An arrow sighed overhead; a darkspawn squealed below.

"I've left Leliana and Shianni in charge of the archers."

"It's a bad idea." Nathaniel's agreeing nod was barely visible. "It's too much. One man alone can't do it."

"I'll take the assassin, Zevran - and a mage. A volunteer - hopefully with some knowledge of stealth. Not one of the Knight Commander's "tame" ones."

Before more important matters crowded into his mind, Loghain was briefly surprised at Nathaniel's tone - he didn't see what reason _he_ had to dislike the Chantry. Then he remembered how passionately Rendon Howe had hated them after Mother Bronach stood by while Byron Howe was killed, the castle sacked. And Nathaniel had grown up in Kirkwall, where the Knight Commander was said to be a tyrant. He wasn't sure Zevran was the best choice - he'd been willing enough to turn against his employer after Rilian had defeated him. But perhaps Nathaniel had something to offer him.

"Very well," he said, "Go find your volunteer."

* * *

_What a bizarre situation_, Anders thought. The grandeur of the ancient Tevinter fort would leave Denerim Chantry's for dead. Pillars like oaks and doors like the gates of the Golden City. And in the midst of all this splendour, the dilapidated people. Irving: pale as sea-salt, tears and sweat streaking the beard that made him look like he was being attacked by a wild animal. All the Templars not on the battlements or in the courtyard: stained and creased like bundles of dirty laundry. Knight Commander Rylock: heavy-eyed, her blood-spattered tunic now more black than purple. Wynne: in a stupor of fatigue. Knight Commander Harith's colour was sickly, his fingernails bitten down so far he had drawn blood. _Ah-ha_, thought Anders, _so there _are_ still traces of blood in his lyrium. Who knew?_

The old Arl, Eamon, was there too, supported by the healers.

"This smoke," he complained absently, "It's so irritating. Gets in my eyes and makes me cough. Teagan is so lucky I left him back at Redcliffe. Wish I was there too."

Everyone ignored him.

"I've tried a scented cloth to the nose," he continued, "But it doesn't seem to work. Is there anything else I can do?"

"You could try wearing one of the Templar helms," Sweeney suggested brightly, "Those visors won't let much through. Explains a lot."

"Tansy," said Ines suddenly. Her eyes were glazed; exhaustion reduced a voice like a bag of razors to a low monotone. "Tansy or winter savoury. They make a nice paste to sooth inflamed eyes. I should have some in my pack."

_Ho hum._

Knight Commander Rylock addressed the gathering: "Brothers and sisters in the Maker's service, I have called this emergency chapter to inform you that we have suffered a terrible defeat."

A pause. _Well, go on. What are you waiting for? Say it. _Say _it!_

"We are surrounded." A quiet voice: very clear, very thin. No emotion at all. Anders could tell she was trying to find the words. Very calm, though. Only her hands contradicted that. They looked uncertain.

"You will realise that many of our most valiant and pious brethren - including Knight Commander Greagoir - met a noble death on the battlefield to the greater glory of the Maker. But in suffering for righteousness' sake, they suffered as our Lady Andraste suffered. They died with confidence, knowing that they would be delivered to His arms. For Divine Theodosia the Second has said of the Templar knight: "should he be killed, we know he has not perished, but come safely to port."

_Not a word about the dead mages! _Inchoate images seethed across Anders' vision: the Blizzards and firestorms, the smoke and stone, black lightning as the darkspawn boiled around Irving's desperate stand. They had bought time for the northern forces to reach Warden Alistair's army. _Karl's face, empty of all expression, eyes like glass staring up at me._

Karl's body had been placed with the other dead - the Templars, mages, soldiers and Chasind - burning like the ancient Alamarri chieftains. The pyres were still blazing: a greasy pall of smoke drifted sluggishly east. _We have to die in war to be treated like people. _In Kinloch Hold, they were cremated, ground into powder, and disposed of in the lake. No-one ever said it out loud - but Anders had explored every inch of that prison and never seen urns bearing the names of dead Enchanters. _I guess the phylacteries take up all the shelf space._

There was a muffled noise. Ser Bran had bolted for the doors. The look on his face was wild and frantic.

"Stand down, Ser Bran," Rylock responded, very gently, "It is not yet time to fight. It is time to pray."

Bran didn't seem to hear. Suddenly Wynne stood up, just a row behind. Pushed past the knot of Templars and mages and laid a hand on Bran's shoulder. Anders caught only snatches: "Need...stay...strong...help..." It seemed to get through. Rylock said not a word - just threw Wynne a look of gratitude.

Someone else was crying. Anders could hear the gulps and the snuffles. He looked around - it was Carroll. His face was hidden, but his shoulders were shaking. Beside him, Cullen. Glassy-eyed. Grey as offal. Ines was weeping too, her head on Sweeney's shoulder. It was incredible to Anders that _any _mage should cry over Knight Commander Greagoir - but he supposed the old bastard had been kinder than most. Karl, who had come from the Gallows in Kirkwall, had told him Knight Commander Meredith didn't even let the mages form relationships. Ines and Sweeney had shared a chamber ever since passing their Harrowings. Strangely, he and Karl had been the only other two who had found a sense of family together. Apprentices made the rounds on a regular basis, as casually as scratching an inch - it was generally accepted that everybody would have been with everybody by the time they were Harrowed.

After the Harrowings, they changed. Enchanters and Senior Enchanters schemed and wrangled, studied and formed meaningless Fraternities. They gathered cliques and worked their way up through serving whichever faction was in the ascendant. Anders and Karl had speculated over this: whether the power mages possessed made them like tigers - lone predators who, when bunched together in a zoo, fought each other. Or whether it was because no-one expected anything better. From their earliest days, they were taught nothing beyond spells and following rules. They didn't cook, do their own laundry; were treated as potentially dangerous creatures without morals, loyalty, nationality or family. Anders wasn't sure what had made him and Karl different: unless it was that both had known a life outside the Circle. Karl had been from a farming family in the Free Marches. Anders' mother had been an Elven servant at Denerim palace. Both had tried desperately to keep their sons. With Karl there, Anders' many escape attempts had been half-hearted: he had yearned for freedom, but their relationship had pulled him back like golden chains. Now the chains were broken. Having no sense of family with any of the others, fighting for them seemed as stupid as a prisoner fighting for his jail, knowing the bars would slam shut as soon as he was no longer needed.

"Comrades in arms," Rylock's voice - _commanding_ attention, "these are days of tribulation for us all. But despite our trials, we must not surrender. You may say that such terrible creatures as darkspawn are proof that the Maker has abandoned us. Well, _I _say the Maker allowed the darkspawn to be created to test the faithful. I ask you to consider the words of Divine Renata the First: "Andraste's victory was not dependant on a large army; her bravery was the Maker's gift."

_Ha! Divine Renata struck the contribution of Shartan from the records. She _would _say that, wouldn't she?_

"I call on Sister Leliana to lead us in our devotions. Praise be to the Maker for all His mercies."

_All _what_ mercies?! Have I missed something here? I thought we were talking about a _disaster_..._

Rylock bowed her head. Anders didn't pay attention to what Leliana said, he simply appreciated the view. Gorgeous - strong - hair falling like red rain down her back. The heavy smudges under her eyes only made them seem darker, more alluring. After the prayer, he was surprised when Rylock consecrated the remaining vials of the Templars' lyrium in full view of the mages - normally they never got to see this, no doubt because some mage would point out that a few words didn't change the fact that the mage and Templar mixtures were the same. He was even more surprised when Rylock had Sergeant Rocald and Cullen help her pass the stuff round to mages and Templars together.

_Nothing like lyrium to get the old blood flowing. Puts the spark back in your spirits. The lift back in your life. _Anders muffled laughter in his sleeve at the look on Harith's face. He didn't speak - wasn't allowed to - but his expression said it all: mages before _him?_! By the time it came round to him, would he be left with the dregs? _And - yes! Here it comes._ A hungry look from Harith as he eyed Anders' potion. _Not on your life, garbage-guts! Time to bolt it down, just in case he decides to exert some force..._

Sweet.

The doors were wrenched open. Teyrn Loghain led the way, flanked by a young nobleman who looked the spitting image, Warden Alistair, Teyrn Fergus, the Elven supply-master, and two other nobles whom Anders did not know. One looked like a younger, blonder version of Fergus; the other an older man whose sandy beard was speckled with grey. "Is everyone here?" the Teyrn barked, "Good. Then we can begin." He parted the crowd like Andraste parting the Tevinter straights - except that Loghain had to get in there and do it with his elbows. Straight down the middle, with the others trailing in his wake. The bodies surged together behind him.

Loghain addressed them, and Anders didn't like the coiled tension in his muscles; the way his iron-clad boot tapped the stone.

"Rylock. We'll start with your assessment."

Rylock cleared her throat: "General: the breach in the southern wall has doubled in size within a few hours. The ogres are relentless. My Templars are stretched to the limit holding the Western Gate. The Hurlock General will keep using his filthy magic until we choke. The remaining darkspawn attack through Lothering Forest. We won't be able to keep them out for longer than a night."

A babble of protesting voices echoed round and round the chamber the way lake Calenhad battered the Tower during a storm.

Loghain raised a hand. _Amazing what an effect he can have. _The noise ebbed. The silence that fell was so heavy it seemed to crush air from Anders' lungs.

"I had reached practically the same conclusion myself. Wynne: do you have the casualty figures?"

Wynne blinked. She looked a hundred years old. "Five-hundred and twenty-three dead; one thousand and forty-five wounded."

"Maker preserve us," breathed the sandy-haired lord.

Rylock made the sign of Andraste.

"Then what are we going to do?" Irving wheezed.

Anders looked to Loghain: standing there like some kind of long-nosed, hawk-faced statue. "I believe there's only one thing we can do," he said quietly, "I believe..."

"...that we should charge from the main gates and give our lives to the Maker as Andraste gave her life for us!" Cullen: white face gleaming with sweat and devotion. _Hasn't been quite right since Uldred._

"That's insane! That's no more than suicide!" The shrill, frantic voice of Harith.

Cullen slowly shook his head. "Not suicide, Knight Commander. Martyrdom." Anders could see the notion really appealed to him. He could equally see that it _didn't _appeal to Harith. "_Martyrdom_!" he screeched, practically climbing the walls. (No-one was going to make a martyr out of _him_!)

Suddenly aware that all eyes were on him, Harith pulled himself together, took a deep breath, and wiped the palms of his hands on his purple sash. "Certainly it would be martyrdom," he announced gravely, "But it would also be martyrdom for the people of Denerim. Without us, there will be no-one to stand between the horde and the capital. I cannot condone such an impious action. Is it right to think only of our own souls?"

_No, it's not. It's not right at all. Let's be sensible. Let's live to fight another day._

"I agree with Knight Commander Harith," Rylock said slowly, "We cannot leave Denerim to the mercy of the horde." She turned to her fellow Templar and said, "Your concern for the capital's citizens does you credit." There was nothing to suggest her words should not be taken at face value - expect for a certain gleam in the dark eyes; the flat, cool stare of a hunting hawk. "If we meet the horde in the open, that will happen. Likewise if we attempt to retreat. We must hold Ostagar for as long as we can."

"Indeed," Loghain said - glaring at both Cullen and Harith like an eagle watches mice. "Cyrion: what are your figures?"

The grey-haired, flour-speckled Elven man looked up slowly. His face was gaunt; gnarled skin hanging loose from grey cheeks. "There are supplies for a few days more."

Rylock turned to Loghain with a dark and bitter glare. "There are the horses."

"Thank you, Knight Commander. I've ordered all remaining barriers put at the western gate. You and your people should stay behind them, firing at range with arrows and magic. Warden Alistair," he turned to the younger man with a feral grin, "How do you feel about taking out the ogres?"

Alistair's lips twitched in a hard-bitten grin. "I've certainly had the practice."

"Good. You're with me, then. Now: Lord Howe intends to take a small group and break out through Lothering Forest. We need a volunteer - a mage."

Anders' brain worked quickly, weighing odds. He was startled to realise he didn't care. The chance for freedom was worth any price. He stepped forward.

"You're in."

Rylock stepped forward too - face like a thundercloud. "Absolutely not! That mage is a flight risk. He'll get off a paralysis spell, leave you to the horde, and be on his way out of Ferelden. I refuse!"

Anders met the furious glare with a louche smirk. "Flatterer."

To his amazement, the young nobleman said: "If this mage has experience of fleeing the Circle, so much the better. He'll have some knowledge of stealth."

"And of paralysing or stunning you as soon as you let your guard down!"

Anders could not read the thoughts behind the silver eyes. They were pale, cool, boiling with some secret amusement. "Knight Commander," he said, with grave courtesy, "I have no intention of letting my guard down. You have the word of a Howe that, if you do not find this mage safely locked up in Denerim Chantry when you return, it will be because the Maker has taken him."

Strangling with outrage, Rylock's jaw worked several times before she managed a response. "If...if you feel it is best." The words stuck to her tongue as though they had claws but she forced them out.

Anders couldn't hold back the big, smug smile that all but wrapped itself around his face.

"You find this amusing, mage?" she said tightly, "I'd be interested to see how far a sense of humour gets you against the darkspawn. Because I've yet to see the creatures die laughing."

_What is it about me? Can somebody please explain? What is it about me that _instantly _makes me the target of every iron-spined, bladder-brained, po-faced, arrogant, soulless, purple-skirted meathead in the entire Chantry?_

* * *

Rylock carefully refused to look as Nathaniel Howe, the Warden's Elven assassin, and the mage left the Templar Tower. Watching Anders gloat might make her do something foolish. As Loghain organised the archers, Voldrik's crew, and Bannorn against the assault on the southern gates, she turned to her own motley group of Templars and mages. She had been trained to organise Templars, and knew the capabilities of her men and Greagoir's. She had _not _been trained to lead mages - or even consider them allies - and aside from Wynne knew absolutely nothing about what they could or couldn't accomplish. Mentally, she ran through every spell she'd seen used on her or her comrades over the past twenty years: Blizzard, Mind Blast, Paralysis, Inferno, Crushing Prison, Stinging Swarm, Stonefist, Tempest, various glyphs, Miasma, Death Magic, Walking Bomb, Curse of Mortality, Horror. She wouldn't allow herself to consider Blood Magic. She wouldn't have it used - not to save Ostagar; not even to save Denerim. As she'd experienced all those spells far too close for comfort, she didn't know what range was effective: could the mages function as archers, or catapults? Could they support each other - form a gestalt? She stared out at the sea of unknown faces and realised she'd better learn names too, and quickly. Shouting out "mage" or "robe" - all that was needed under normal circumstances - would get her too many responses. Most of them, she wouldn't like.

She began by asking: "Who is skilled in healing magic?"

Other than Wynne, two newly Harrowed mages stepped forward. One had red hair; one was dark and plain, like her.

"Petra and Keili are the best we have," Wynne confirmed.

The young mage named Keili was staring at her with an expression Rylock couldn't easily read. No - not at her - at the sword of mercy strapped by her left hip. Her dark eyes held disappointment; yearning.

"Why didn't you enact the Right? Then I would be free of my curse, by the Maker's side. Now we must suffer this."

It came to Rylock with a sudden jolt that, if not for the arguments of Rilian and Alistair and the orders of Greagoir, she would have seen all these faces die on the point of her sword.

"That's a - strange opinion for a mage to have."

"I was a Chantry Child in Amaranthine when my curse manifested. I must have done something wicked to be afflicted with something so terrible."

"I was a Chantry Child, too," Rylock said - surprising herself. "My parents were mages; as I suspect were yours. If there was sin, it was not ours. It is just an accident that you are not me, or I am not you."

As a child, Rylock had always known her chances of manifesting magic were higher than average. Equally, she had always known what she would choose. _If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off. _To serve the Maker as a Tranquil was, to her, no less worthy than serving him as a Templar or Chantry sister: one could only choose to make the best of what one was given. What she was lay in her choices, lay between her and the Maker; the capacity to feel emotion had nothing to do with it. She was the captain of her own ship; whether the waters of emotion were choppy or calm she would sail it to the Maker's shore. The Tranquil had seemed, if anything, to be full of brilliant clarity - holy purpose not marred by human weakness: the only people on Thedas not condemned to see through a glass darkly.

But her conversations with Wynne had taught her something. That the Chant itself said: "Magic exists to serve man." Therefore it was not intrinsically evil - a curse only to those who misused it.

It suddenly occurred to her that her earlier speech had made no mention of the mages who had died tonight.

She said: "A person may serve the Maker as a mage just the same as they may serve Him as a Templar. I want the two of you to report to Wynne."

To Rylock's annoyance, two old mages at the back were ignoring her completely: their attention wholly focused on an intense conversation with each other. She said, pointedly: "If you have something of value to say, say it so we can hear."

The woman who looked about Wynne's age and the older, ascetic-looking man jerked their heads up, offended. They were looking at her extremely strangely - as though on the verge of laughter. Or tears.

"I don't care if you hear, young woman," the old man snapped, "What would surprise me would be if you understood."

Carroll exploded into soggy snickers that he tried to muffle on his sash. Rylock counted to ten, slowly. She heard Commander Harith mutter: "Senile old menace" and Carroll reply, "Give the geezer a break - he's, like, a hundred. We Templars will all be senile at half his age!"

_And if _that_ isn't enough to ruin anyone's day._

Rylock uttered a quiet hiss like steam from a kettle and asked calmly: "Who is skilled in primal magic?"

A young, copper-haired man stepped forward. His hazel eyes were serene. He wore the sun-brand on his forehead. With the mild, disinterested air of pure observation, he announced: "I was a skilled elementalist before I was made Tranquil - for speaking against Knight Commander Greagoir. Now, it seems unfortunate he did not follow the Qun: where it is the tongues that are leashed, and not the magic."

_Maker's breath! What sort of a Circle is it where even the Tranquil give me sarcasm?_

Briskly, she said: "Are you skilled with herbs or potions? If so, you could..."

"I am skilled at nothing beyond crafting magical armour," he said, and raised a hammer. "It makes the arms very strong. Strong enough to cut through darkspawn defences."

Rylock stared - then shook her head, quickly. "You are not trained. As a Tranquil, we Templars are responsible for your safety."

"Some would say I have no life to lose. That my soul passed on the day I was forced to the Rite. The Chant itself says the Maker intended us to return to the Fade each night in dreams - that we might always remember Him. I neither sleep, dream, nor love. I am like an earthworm shown a sunset that has no place to store the memory. What does that say of me?"

_What does it say of _us? The thought scratched at Rylock's brain like a cat sharpening its claws. _If he is right, then Tranquillity is blasphemy._

She was unutterably relieved when Harith said: "Actually - I have an idea: something he could do." Tactics and strategy she could handle. Decisions, like scissors snipping away alternatives, reduced the world to a series of absolutes.

"Speak."

"Someone could bring Voldrik's water-pump to the western side of the battlements."

Rylock blinked, nonplussed. "We need it to put out fires. What good will it do us to bathe the darkspawn?"

"Might help with the smell," Carroll suggested brightly.

Harith snorted derisively. "We could wet them down, then have one of the Primals cast Chain Lightning. The water will act as a superconductor."

Rylock gaped a moment, like a landed fish. Harith was brilliant. What a pity he normally drowned his talent in excessive lyrium.

"Make it so."

* * *

Leliana caught up with the grim Knight Commander as soon as she had finished organising her Templars and mages.

"Yes?" The word was curt, short - to Rylock there was no such thing as conversation for its own sake. Her mind seemed to still be on something else: the usual hard focus of her eyes was struggling. Thinking was going on - beyond the need to give orders, or obey them.

"If there is time," Leliana said, suddenly shy, "I could take last confessions. I know I am not qualified to do so - but there is no other Chantry sister here."

"I don't see as that should be a problem for you," Rylock said briskly, "You have done more than enough unofficial preaching."

Leliana blinked in surprise. She could not fail to miss the rebuke - Rylock was never particularly subtle - and wondered what she could have possibly done to have earned this woman's dislike.

"You're very...blunt. And you don't approve of me. Why?"

In another moment, Rylock would have kept her thoughts behind her usual wall of impenetrable silence. Stress and exhaustion made her blurt out:

"You have been telling everyone who'll listen of your vision - of your own version of the faith - yet you have made no commitment to anything. You are not confirmed - you travelled with Rilian but did not choose to join the Wardens - you abandoned Ser Bryant and all his men in Lothering. I resent this."

Pain ripped a gasp out of Leliana. "That...that's not what happened!" She saw herself in Rylock's eyes: a raconteur who gathered bits and pieces of other lives here and there - the Chantry, the Wardens - and then moved on, cannibalising parts of them for songs and stories.

Was it not true? Her vision had been so real - the rose had been real - but had not the Guardian of the Ashes said: "You enjoyed the attention your beliefs gave you"? Was that all there was? Had she not been running ever since Marjolaine had betrayed her? The cruel laughter of Harwen Raleigh rattled at her in the shrieks of the darkspawn - candles guttered in their brackets above her head, reminiscent of the smirks and whispers of his followers. A sword clanged - she heard the slam of the dungeon door that had closed her away from light and life and love. She had fled Marjolaine to take refuge in Lothering - had fled Lothering to take refuge with Rilian - had not stayed with Rilian at the end...

She had never told Rilian about Marjolaine. Not even when Rilian, in her innocence, had described her as the woman who had trained her mother. Leliana had never admitted she had worked with Adaia - that the training had been more than music. She had told herself it was kinder: Rilian believed her mother a victim wrongly accused of theft - better to let her believe that than explain the theft had been of something worse than coin. Papers. Detailed plans of Maric's intended voyage. Neither Rilian nor Leliana had seen Marjolaine in years - there had been no reason to warn her. Still, she knew she had been ashamed to admit that she and Adaia had escaped Harwen Raleigh together - running until they could run no more - that she had kept on running even as the guards had cornered Adaia. Run until she had found Dorothea and the Chantry. She thought of how she'd kept the truth from her closest friend, and felt dirty.

"You are right: I have made no commitment. But today I stop running. If there was a Mother here to take my vows to the Chantry, I would give them."

Rylock looked abashed, embarrassed. "I should not have cast stones: Andraste herself warned against doing so. It was unworthy."

"It's forgotten. We're both wound as tight as my bowstring. I want you to know, though, that I believe in my vision. The Maker has not abandoned us. His love has flown into every flower grown; He is the keeper of the garden. People want to think he does not interfere in the physical realm, so that when He does return they will feel special; chosen. But I have seen him in the rose of Lothering - in the colours of air and rain - in the people around me. I believe. Ferelden will not fall to the horde."

Rylock said, gently, "Believing that the Maker does not influence the physical world is not the same as believing He has abandoned us. He influences the world through those of us who follow Him. Whether we win or lose today does not make him any less than the goodly god He is. What kind of faith fights for reward - either here, or in the afterlife? We fight because it is _right_ - because He is all that is good. What matters is Him, Himself - that is all I have ever wanted."

Leliana smiled, ashamed of her own judgements - though she had not voiced them. She had cast people like Rylock and the Chantry Mothers who had argued against her as having a dry, dead sort of faith. Instead, Rylock's more orthodox faith was as deep and visceral as her own - all the more beautiful because it came with no conditions; no expectations of victory or even comfort. Rylock's sombre face and quiet eyes seemed austerely bright...Leliana saw the Maker in her as she had seen Him in her companions: in Rilian, in Wynne and Alistair, even in big bad Sten, whose death was a raw ache in her heart. She smiled at the thought that Sten and Rylock were really quite similar people - and smiled even wider when she thought of the tongue-lashing they would have given her if she had shared that observation. They were starlight - they were golden. What a shame they didn't know. Or was it? Perhaps true beauty was a thing unrecognised by the conscious self: a thing of being rather than seeing.

Appreciation of people and nature was Leliana's personal form of prayer. It was Elven philosophy...she remembered vividly the day she had told Rilian about Elven servants in Orlais and Rilian had snapped at her, hurt because she had seen the words as patronising and demeaning. _Haven't you understood _anything! Leliana had cried, _My mother _was _Elven - and when my Elven grandmother taught me the mourning song it was to give me a piece of the other side of my heritage!_

To Fereldens Leliana was Orlesian - to Orlesians she was a poor relation afflicted by the odours of wet mabari and Ferelden mud - to Elves she was shemlen - to humans she was an itinerant bard and part-time Sister. But Leliana knew who she was - and what she would become.

Should she die today, her soul would become part of the grass and flowers - her spirit would shine in the rain, forever transparent to the stars. She would see the world anew in each rising of its sun - she would live forever.

A thunderous crash suddenly shook the foundations of the Tower. The emissary at the western gates. As Rylock turned to reinforce them Leliana suddenly grabbed her hand. The desperate situation had crystallised something for her: terrible knowledge and instantaneous decision.

"Rylock - if you're going to hold that thing off you need to know: the taint cloud corrodes steel. I saw it in the Deep Roads. Here: take my sword."

She unbuckled the Dragonbone blade she and Rilian had found in the Deep Roads and held it out, hilt first. Rilian had been entranced by Topsider's Honor: by its legend and meaning. But the lighter Greensteel had been the right weight for her. So she had given Leliana the blade once worn by an Elven hero, in honour of their shared heritage.

"What about you?"

Leliana smiled and tapped the gleaming, walnut-brown arc of Farsong. "Today, we shall write our own legend."

* * *

Atop the southern battlements, Shianni worked The Dark Moon with deadly precision. Valendrian had told her it was a bow used by Shartan himself, during his rebellion against Tevinter. Staring down at the sea of grunting, straining men and darkspawn at the penetration below, she smiled: a hard curl of her lip. How fitting to put one right through the back of the slaver bastard! Not that she would be so stupid. Loghain seemed to be all that was holding the spawn back. He was destruction incarnate. His heavy Ferelden sword whipped like a wand. Where it struck, darkspawn bones broke - blades shattered - helms caved in. The spike on his shield punched open vicious wounds; its razor edge slashed throats as he jerked it upward. He reaped a fearsome harvest. Shianni thought to herself that serving as a human meatshield was the best use of shems she'd ever seen.

Beside her, Cale loosed with feral speed. At intervals among the long line of archers, Merrill, Velanna and Lanaya outdid even Dworkin for destruction, hurling flame, ice and nature spells into the horde in a fire-shower of ruin.

She dredged up the last of her own energy to engage a Hurlock warrior who had managed to climb to the battlements. Gasping for breath, almost sobbing, Shianni drew her DarMissan and thrust. The creature answered with a two-handed descending slash that hammered the point toward the stone. In the instant when both weapons were grounded, Shianni dropped to her haunches and drove the crown of her helmeted head directly into its crotch. It doubled the thing over. Measuring, she drew back the Elven sword and opened its throat. Light, quick steps avoided the gush of black blood. She slumped against the far wall and closed her eyes.

Next moment Leliana was there, looking afraid. "Are you alright?"

"Never better. We'll get him in the next round."

"What?"

"Nothing. How are the men?"

"Many injured. Many dead. There's a fire in the courtyard."

"I'll get men on Voldrik's pumps."

Shianni managed a long pull on her waterbag as she sprinted for the nearest. Rylock had requisitioned one for the western gate - the others were here. Checking the hoses, calling for help, she had them working quickly. Varel Baern of the Irregulars took over the pump handle, allowing her to return to the fight. She looked back, once. The fires seemed to be under control. Most importantly, the flames had not touched the area where Dworkin's Blackpowder was stored. She rejoined Leliana.

Staring at her thoughtfully, Shianni said: "Rilian told me you have an Elven mother?"

"Had," Leliana said softly, "She died when I was six. She was a maid to an Orlesian chevalier and his wife, Lady Celene. They lived in Denerim. A few years after the occupation ended, they returned to Orlais. Her name was Delena."

Shianni felt her face crease into a small, wry smile. Succinctly, she said: "We're cousins."

"Oh yes - I know Elves and Humans are very closely related..."

"No - I mean you're actually my cousin. And Ril's. Cyrion had a brother and sister. His brother was my father. His sister was Delena. When she left for Orlais, she left behind her Elven husband's child, Soris. Better to continue to send money for him than lose employment. Cyrion took Soris in - and me as well, after my parents died of marshfever. Delena was the one who introduced Adaia to Cyrion."

Leliana was laughing softly. She had a smile like sun on flowers. An oddly familiar smile. She looked searchingly into Shianni's eyes. "I see her in you," she said at last.

Shianni only shook her head in amazement. How bizarre to think that she had at least one thing in common with this too-tall, too-beautiful shem woman! Both had seen Rilian in the other.

During her long convalescence - the streets outside Cyrion's house vibrating with sideways glances and prurient whispers - Shianni had hated herself for thinking that things had happened the wrong way round. Because Rilian lived so much in her head. Imagination and creativity would have transmuted the shame - Nelaros, a dreamer too, would have loved her still. What _had_ happened: Nelaros' death - the murder of Vaughan - the dark dirge of the Song - had seeped into thought like ink into water. Rilian was all thought: whatever darkened those darkened _her_ - far more than any physical violation could have done. Shianni, by contrast, could have dealt very well with killing Vaughan - with the dark Call - simply by being pragmatic enough to push them from her mind. But she had prided herself on physical purity, industriousness, cleanliness - the traditional virtues of Alienage women that would have led, in time, to a virginal wedding and fecund marriage. It was only when she had found the Dalish - found Cale - that she had learned to value herself for courage, skill, commitment. She glanced over at the lithe-dark-haired form and smiled wistfully. Even so, she would still have given anything to change places - protect Ril from what awaited in the Deeps.

"If we make it out of this," she said, even as she sent an arrow streaming downwards to take a Hurlock in the chest, "You must read me Ril's diary..."

* * *

Nathaniel did not need Rylock's warning to keep both Zevran and Anders safely in front of him. Such caution was second nature. At the northern wall's small, hidden exit he ordered the illuminating torches put out. The murky orange haze flared and guttered out, dropping a silver-and-black blanket of snow and darkness over them. Nathaniel blinked quickly. The torch had destroyed his night vision; he took a few moments to grow accustomed. He twisted about, using his side vision to get a clearer picture, reading the world like a spider, through the tingling of its web. The forest was alive with shadows - the howls of darkspawn turned it to a living entity; a writhing, dark-crawling monster who sought to absorb them, swallow them. The dark columns of trees and the flitting shadows created a shifting ambiguity. He saw, and did not - could not - see. Shadows and darkspawn created a conspiracy of night and movement that revealed only peril. The grunting, panting exertion of the spawn came to him as the straining of beasts. He blended his body with the night - not so much a conscious movement as a draining of the self. He bled out, became part of the night. With each noiseless step, he seemed to grow beyond himself, became spirit-like. Zevran did the same: one minute he was there - lithe form and handsome face in front of Nathaniel - the next he wasn't. The mage did something similar. Nathaniel felt a curious whisper, like the touch of ice on his skin, as the Veil fluttered aside. Anders was now a translucent ghost - existing only partly in this world.

Both Nathaniel and Zevran carried bows and quivers of arrows; Anders his staff. All three were further equipped with as many sacks of Dworkin's Blackpowder as they could carry. Ordinarily, the fire would not spread within a snow-dampened forest - Anders' spells should fix that. They came upon three darkspawn in a clearing. Zevran's exhalation was no more than the hiss of a mosquito. It underscored Nathaniel's own dark-shrouded sigh. Silently, Nathaniel nocked an arrow - sighted. Zevran mirrored him. Nodding at each other, they loosed together. On Nathaniel's other side, Anders had paralysed the third. A second spell, a silent draining of life, was bleeding out its life-force even as it sat, mute and limbless, unable to move. Nathaniel's lips drew thin, like steel bending. No - he would definitely _not _take his eyes off the mage.

Zevran busied himself: packing Blackpowder jars into the hollows of trees - into the darkspawn bodies. He lit the fuses with flint and tinder. As soon as it was done, the three men ran on - silent, like wraiths in the night.

Darkspawn shrieked and writhed around them. Nathaniel cursed silently. The creatures had not seen them - but as soon as the wicks burned out the resulting explosion would illuminate everything, exposing the three running men cruelly. He could see the realisation echoed in the other ghostly-pale faces.

Anders saved them. Under his breath, the young mage began casting: a haste spell that gave wings to their speed, caused boots to fly through the terrain. Nathaniel wanted to laugh. It was exhilarating! They ran on, stopping to light more fuses - here...here...there... Soon, the silver glint of the river beyond the forest showed like a sickle blade between the bars of tall trees.

Anders turned - stopped to cast again. Nathaniel waited carefully until he was lost in the magic. The mage's face was alive, exhilarated - aware of nothing beyond the white, crackling energy at his fingertips. Silently Nathaniel reached into a fold of his cloak. Of all the myriad poisons he carried, he searched only for a small glass syringe. Then whipped it towards the mage with the speed of a striking snake. When he withdrew it, a single bead of blood glittered on the tip. Nathaniel carefully placed the blood in a tiny vial containing lyrium. Zevran hadn't missed it - but he was too sensible to say anything. In another moment Anders' spell had blossomed to fruition, enshrouding all three of them in a protective mantle of living rock. It embraced Nathaniel like a lover, sparing him the necessity of protecting himself. Even as the fuses exploded, one by one, sending fireworks up into the inky bowl of sky, the mass of darkspawn oozed from the trees, surrounding them.

The Rock Armour also protected skin from fire, Nathaniel discovered. He closed his eyes as Anders began his final spell: inferno. It budded and bloomed: touched all the Blackpowder jars in turn, like flint into kindling.

The Blackpowder exploded. The effect on the forest was thunderous. Rather than one massive blast, it seemed to build, rising to a terrible spectacular crescendo of sound and light. Blue-violet flame balled, billowed to red, leapt into the night. Jars rocketed across the trees, exploding in a glory of fire and light. The flames leapt through the darkness - touching the darkspawn army with death. Agonised screams and howls rose from deep within, as if the very forest was alive and groaning In the midst of it all, the towering trees creaked - groaned - and crashed to earth. The sky itself turned to red: a vast mushroom cloud that began as a single bright point and then exploded outward like a enormous red disc.

Anders, Nathaniel and Zevran were long gone by then, the Haste giving them inhuman speed as they reached the open ground and the liquid silver of the cooling river.

Nathaniel saw Zevran breathing heavily: delighted. "I haven't had such fun in years!" he breathed, in that musical Antivan accent. "We, my friends, are _ridiculously _awesome!"

Nathaniel startled himself by bursting into spontaneous laughter - something the controlled young man did not often allow himself to do. Anders too was flushed, his face - Cailan's face, Nathaniel noted with surprise - exhilarated.

"And now what, fearless leader?" they asked, almost in the same voice.

"Now Zevran and I will go on to South Reach - pick up horses, then ride to Denerim to warn them."

A sulky expression crossed Anders' face. "And me? Mages should walk, it that it?"

"No," said Nathaniel, rather amused by the childish petulance. He couldn't believe Rylock had seen this man as a serious threat! Nathaniel's own father had made dangerous apostates look like milk-fat kittens. If Cailan had been a child playing at war, this bastard of Maric's was a child playing at being a rebel. "I simply thought that, if you were to come with us to South Reach, the Arling will report to Rylock that you survived the battle."

Anders' eyes lit up. "You'd let me go? That's...rather marvellous of you!"

A smile flickered across Nathaniel's face: a fell smile, pale and cold. "When I warn Grand Cleric Leanna of the possibility of a darkspawn attack, she'll likely order the mage's phylacteries moved north to Amaranthine - while nearly all its Templars will be called south. Something to consider. You see, I've always been sympathetic to the mage resistance. In Kirkwall, I worked closely with a woman named Lianne, who shelters apostates."

As Anders left - unable to believe his luck - Zevran turned quizzically to the son of his former employer. "Cruel like your father. You give him his freedom - but take a blood sample? To send the Chantry hounds on his trail after all?"

"Oh no. The Templars are not the only ones who know how to track using phylacteries. So long as he lives, Anders will never be out of sight of me or my agents. Ever. He's far too useful to turn in."

Zevran was smiling. It was a smile of recognition. He saw in Nathaniel a consummate ruthlessness, and his inner being swarmed to it as to a flame.

Nathaniel knew the survival of both Fergus and Channon meant he could never gain the North. He'd be lucky to keep Amaranthine. Queen Anora would probably let him hold the Arling: Nathaniel had proven himself a hero today and having the entire North under control of the Couslands was too dangerous - better that they balance each other. That wasn't enough to satisfy him. Besides, Kirkwall had been his home for sixteen years. He had built a network of allies, spies and informants he couldn't hope to equal in Ferelden. He had watched Perin Threnhold's attempts to declare independence squashed by tyranny - he had watched as the man he was squired to was humiliated in a thousand petty ways. The Viscount's son, Seamus, was a good man - a friend - but he was weak. He had no _goals_. Kirkwall needed a stronger ruler - once Anders helped him overthrow the existing one. Both he and the mage had kept samples of Dworkin's version of Gaatlok. Not that he would stop there. Nathaniel was a true Ferelden patriot - like his father. Commanding both Amaranthine and Kirkwall would mean he owned the straights between - that would grant him unparalleled influence over shipping. He would have wealth, power - but what mattered more was that Ferelden and Kirkwall together could do what one alone could not. Throw off the chains that bound them - support themselves against Orlais and declare true independence from the Chantry.

Zevran was eyeing him a trifle speculatively. "You realise I was the assassin hired by your father to kill the Wardens."

"Yes - so I have noticed."

"I just wanted to report that I failed in my mission."

"You don't say."

"I'm terribly broken up about it." The gleaming amber eyes told a different story.

"The Wardens are not my enemy." No - not even the one he suspected of being his father's murderer. He had wanted to kill the Elven woman at first - lay a trap for her. But the stories he had heard had made him realize that his father in later life had become as much a disgrace to the Howe name as Thomas. In his youth, Rendon Howe had been there while the chevaliers took the Arling; been tortured and imprisoned. During that time, he had suffered like the damned. It had made him what he was: quick to anger, violent, sadistic. But Nathaniel would always remember that he had also been a patriot: a hero at White River. Better he died before people forgot that.

"However, if you want to make up for your transgressions, you may work for me."

"As an assassin?"

"Among other things. The exact terms of our contract can be left - open."

The laughing eyes regarded him. "That's quite an offer - especially from another man. That is, if we are talking about the same thing?"

"I suspect we are." Nathaniel despised his father and Thomas for having allowed pleasure to distract them from business. But he saw no harm in mixing the two now and then. Making love with Zevran would be like making love with a mirror.

Zevran moved lightly and gracefully to one knee. "I am your man, without reservation..."

* * *

Rylock stood at the central point of the defence of the western gate. On either side, streams of darkspawn charged from left and right. All avoided the monolith in their centre; parted around the Hurlock General like Andraste had parted the Tevinter straights. The General was a fearsome, misshapen ferocity. It stood at the centre of a silver-white mesh of glyphs. The dark spaces between were alive with crawling, living taint. A spectral shield glistened all around like an enormous sphere. The creature seemed to exert a kind of gravity, as if it were drawing all light, all sound, toward itself. Rylock felt as if she were looking down the throat of death. Her own attention was solely fixed on the General; she cast one Cleanse after another, countering each magical attack the creature threw at her comrades.

To her left, First Enchanter Irving flanked a unit of Templars with the fierce determination of a man past his limits. Their front rank were burdened with enormous spears, fully twenty-feet long, normally used only to break up cavalry charges. They moved with almost comic deliberation. When they came within fifty feet of the darkspawn mass, they knelt down - planted the butts of the spears within the hard-packed earth. They shone with blue light so fierce it was like lyrium itself. The darkspawn charged, war-howling. All those touched by the lightning-charged spears died. After the first charge, the power was spent. Irving moved them out of the way, covering the retreat with magical fire, then used the temporary lull to charge the next rank.

To her right, Harith's unit advanced slowly and methodically. He was backed by Rocald. Cullen and Carroll marched with them. Far behind, Thomas Amell was positioned on the battlewalk, spraying the water-pump to its furthest reach.

"Makes no difference to the smell," she heard Carroll mutter in disappointment. As soon as the spawn were wet down, Sweeney cast Chain Lightning. Rylock held her breath; could only hope he'd judged the distance correctly. At once, sputtering sparks of blue fire leapt between the spawn like the blue fins of gathered sharks. The crackle built and built. The next thing Rylock knew, the vista was aflame around her. Living air sizzled and writhed, white-hot. Darkspawn squealed, agonized; the hot, foul stench of burning scorched her nostrils. Ines added to the carnage by casting a primal spell that created a spectacular rainstorm. Together, water and electricity carried a massive charge. With darkspawn steel as lightning rods, nature combined all those elements to create the storm of the century. Screams all around her were grains of sand thrown against rock-hard focus. Even now, the General's Shield protected it. Every time she used her Cleanse to dissipate it, another rose to take its place. Around the General, darkspawn died in thousands.

Nonetheless, the mages were restricted to casting towards the far end of the field. Any closer and they would kill their own allies. They couldn't stop the masses of darkspawn already between the inner and outer walls. Harith moved his men towards their left flank. The Templars wheeled and struck in unison, precise as the movement of constellations. Thrust, block, recover...it was how they took on maleficarum far more powerful individually: by working together. But the darkspawn oozed around the bright rows like water around rock, creating gaps, breaking the unity into a maelstrom of smaller duels. Cullen and Carroll fought side by side. Notches and tears marked their armour. An enormous Hurlock brought a two-handed axe downward; Cullen took the blow on his shield, but the force drove him to his knees. Carroll tried to surge forward - but his excess lyrium usage and gawky eighteen-year-old frame made him clumsy as a puppy. The Hurlock swung its axe sideways to turn the blow. Then the creature dealt him a kick to the groin that nearly pitched him on his head.

Carroll hit the ground and doubled over, retching. At once, Rocald was there - fighting for both of them. He spitted the creature on a sword of mercy. Unseen by Rocald, another darkspawn had come up behind him. While Carroll gaped in horror, helpless with pain, the darkspawn whirled its sword towards Rocald's head.

Without bothering to advertise his intent, Harith quickly darted behind the creature and skewered it.

"I'm dying," Carroll whimpered weakly, "Darkspawn unmanned me."

"Forget it," Rocald growled, "Won't change your life."

Rylock almost smiled at the sight of countless fallen darkspawn: her people - both Templars and mages - had done better than she'd dared hope. But at once she saw she had breathed out too soon. A black cloud billowed outward from where the General stood - its own personal Blightstorm. Utterly silent, the dark crept towards them, revealing itself only in the sudden agonized screams and rales of its victims. The creature's malign staff sent pools of shadow like the one that had killed Pir Surana out into the fray. Shrieks rose like the damned. Rylock swallowed bile. Neither Cleanse nor Smite had any effect on taint. Not only could she not defeat the creature with Templar powers - she could not even remove the wards to allow the mages to take it down. For every one she dispelled, the creature raised another. Rylock realised in despair that emissaries, like blood mages, cast from their veins. It would never run out of Mana - it would never stop.

"Get back" she screamed, "All of you - fall back!" She charged. She was the only one immune to taint - and she had Leliana's sword.

Keili and Petra were already in the fray, dragging wounded Templars to safety - to Wynne and the healing house.

Leliana was absolutely right about the corrosive effects of the cloud. Gaps appeared in her armour like moth-holes.

"Maker's balls!" Carroll wheezed, as Keili half-dragged, half-carried him to safety, "Does this mean you'll have to fight that thing in your smallclothes?"

_Trust Carroll._ Rylock supposed her state of undress would make no difference to how she fought and died - but, all the same, she was glad she was wearing tunic, trousers and gambeson underneath.

The cloud of taint did not burn Rylock's lungs, but it confused her sight like shadow cast on an uneven surface. The darkspawn's movements looked like the flitting and darting of a silhouette. Only its double-bladed staff caught the light, gleaming evilly as it struck fire from Rylock's Dragonbone blade.

The General was surrounded by a miasma that drained life - a kind of necromantic magic that drew Rylock's strength towards itself. Moment by moment, it seemed to grow stronger. The white eyes writhed in its face, gleaming like a beast's. The spear-staff moved like a live thing. It caught and countered every strike, as if to spare the creature the trouble of defending itself.

Rylock's hands were slick with moisture; the gambeson stuck to her skin. Topsider's Honor had gone dead in her grasp; her chest heaved with exertion. It was like moving through treacle. The miasma sapped the resilience from her legs, the quick tension from her wrists, the life from her blade.

A flurry of blows. Loud as forgeworks; bright with sparks.

There was no question about it: she was going to die. She couldn't face the prospect with quite the same approval Cullen had. She couldn't afford to be beaten - absolutely could not afford to fail. If she let herself fail here, the taint cloud would strangle the life from everyone it touched - the pools of liquid darkness would eat through flesh and bone. Loghain and Alistair - busy with the ogres - would be encircled. Ostagar would fall. She struck wildly - once, then again - sheer fury driving away weakness. A slicing pain along her left side brought her back to herself. Not mortal; she knew that with the precision of experience. Nonetheless, it hurt enough to restore her reason.

Not this way. She was never going to beat the General like this. She thought of Loghain's admonishments with a sour smile: _Forget the fancy Orlesian flourishes. Remember that fighting isn't an art._

_If Loghain thinks he could do better than this, let him try…_

Grimly, Rylock fought to prolong her life, keep herself on her feet for just one more moment…then another…then another if she could do it.

_I've fought Uldred…Blood Mages…Hybris…surely I can keep myself going one more moment at a time…_

Maybe not. The pain in her side had become a fire that filled her lungs, so that she seemed to snatch each raw breath through a conflagration. Her legs had lost their spring; she had no more strength to do anything but shuffle her feet over the snow. The taint cloud was a greasy red-black film over her eyes. But her sword remained untarnished, and her gloves - the magic-resistant Dalish gloves Rilian had given her - gripped it firmly. She used the blade to anchor herself.

Somehow not stumbling, not clutching her torn side, Rylock disengaged - then chopped swiftly from the side. The spear-staff wove gleams and flashes of lyrium-blue light as if its steel were a mirror.

Alright, she couldn't beat the General this way. Actually, she couldn't beat the creature at all. But she had to prolong the struggle. Time was vital. So she needed some other way to fight. She had to start thinking like Loghain or Rilian.

She had to do something unconventional.

Then she had it. She began to smile.

"Harith!" she called - though she couldn't see him; for all she knew he was already dead. But he answered her, weakly. He was coughing like a hag, lungs dissolving in taint.

"Pull everybody back. Then order the catapult crew to fire on my position."

_Rilian would be proud._

* * *

"Does it hurt there?"

"Ouch!"

"What about there?"

"Ow!"

"And if I do this? Does that hurt?"

"_Yeow_!"

_Maker save me! I thought people were supposed to go to hospital to get treated, not be tortured to death!_

Carroll felt the touch of Wynne's healing magic as a blue rush, cool and soothing.

"There. If you have any trouble I'd recommend a poultice. Just the usual. Hyssop and wormwood, wax and vinegar, a little comfrey - maybe a touch of marjoram."

"To _drink_?"

"Don't be a fool, young man. It's a fomentation. A dressing."

Wynne didn't wait for a reply - just moved off among those more seriously hurt, quick on her feet for an old lady. Whizz, whizz, whizz. The old temple was packed with injured and tainted men, its floor of rushes slimy with blood and vomit, mute piles of discarded armour, filthy bandages. Hot as a rage demon because the fire was always burning.

Carroll struggled back into his armour and at once Wynne pressed him into helping carry the incoming to their beds. The sight of men with what looked like black spiderwebs literally _eating_ away their bodies made Carroll gasp and turn away. Wynne was giving them vials. Sometimes it worked - sometimes it didn't. When that happened she tried the blacker mixture that turned them into Wardens. Sometimes those died too. Carroll watched a Bannorn soldier choke to death, white eyes writhing in his face.

"Cheer up, lad," a grizzled old Arl who had lost his right arm at the elbow muttered, "After Drakon River we lost ten times this many."

Carroll sank down slowly, head in his hands.

_"The darkspawn will feast on our living hearts! The children of evil are upon us! There is nowhere to run! This evil will cover us like a plague of locusts!"_

_Who…what…where?_ Carroll looked wildly around. A voice like fifty thousand Denerim merchants all screaming in unison. It came from a tiny old Chasind shaman who had been assisting Wynne. The Knight Commander didn't approve of a tribe that sheltered its mages from the Circle but she had grudgingly said nothing. A tiny old man the size of a grain sack, with a beard like drifting cobwebs, all waving hands and staring eyes.

_"We have transgressed and shall be punished! Our end is near; our days are numbered!"_

"Hey now, old boy, things aren't so bad," Carroll tried to reassure him - but his voice stood no chance against the mighty tide of sound.

_Such a big noise to come out of such a little old man - it's uncanny. So what should I do? Shout him down? (Impossible). Bundle him out? (He doesn't look very tough but you can never tell with these mages. He might have the strength of Andraste's big brother)._

_And what's this? Oh dear. Support from the patients._

One of Carroll's own comrades, Ser Beric de Launcet, was sitting up. His skin was grey where the taint ravaged him, eyes febrile and lucent. "It's true! It's true what he says! We are all sinners and this is the Maker's punishment!"

Old Arl Wulf shot to his feet like a gigantic slab of solid gristle. His stump must be causing him agony, which made him frighteningly white. Taut as a bowstring. Left hand bunched in rage. Deeply offended. "Sins? What sins!" he roared. "You'd better shut your festering mouth, my friend, or I'll damn well shut it for you!" Despite his pain, he looked quite capable of carrying out his threat.

"Denerim is supposed to be the birthplace of Andraste and look at it! _Look at it! _It's a sink of vice! A pit full of corrupt lords who argue politics while Ferelden falls to the darkness!"

"Your own Knight Divine is more corrupt than all of them put together!"

"Well, of course he is," Carroll put in, "He was born in Orlais. But that's not _our_ fault, you know."

Laughter from the Bannorn soldiers. Carroll suddenly remembered that Beric had been born in Orlais too, before his family moved to Kirkwall. Deeply devout, they had dedicated their son to the Templars to make up for his brother being born a mage.

_"What did you say!"_

"He said Orlesians are all hatched from the same dungheap." A loud vote of confidence from Arl Wulf, beard bristling with satisfaction.

Beric lurched to his feet.

_Good job, Carroll. Nice work. Wonderful. If I don't do something quickly I'm going to get a kick up the backside…_

"What on earth is going on!"

Wynne. Hands on hips, eyes gleaming with wrath, not very happy. Like a mother who had found her children piddling on her newly-washed linen.

The warrior's grimace slipped from Arl Wulf's features, leaving a baffled, embarrassed cast. Beric blushed with shame.

"This is disgraceful."

"He started it!" One of Arl Wulf's men, in support of his leader. "It's the Orlesian's fault!"

But Wynne was above national prejudice. "There is no excuse for your behavior. You came here to be healed, not to fight. You should support each other; make peace."

_Will they or won't they? Yes, that's done it._ Arl Wulf angrily thrust out his left hand and Beric reluctantly took it.

Carroll tugged at Wynne's cloak. "That's where the trouble started." He pointed toward the Chasind. Wynne nodded and moved to speak quietly to the old shaman.

"Muster your courage."

The old man looked startled, confused. His voice dropped to a normal register. "I saw the blackness swallow the marshes whole! Only those of us who joined Teyrn Fergus survived."

"And yet you are here - here where the fate of the world hinges." The passion in Wynne's face was wonderful and dire. As though she had no arthritis and no years, no weakness of any kind, hope flooded out of her like healing.

A young Chasind struggling against the effects of the Warden blood muttered weakly: "I wish you hadn't made us wash off our death paint. It's not right, that I should go to stand before the Maker with my face unpainted."

"You will not die today," Wynne snapped - _ordered. _

_Death itself would be afraid of her._

In the shuffling, hovering dimness, Carroll helped Wynne as best he could. Toward the south, the air shuddered at the dark-rending crash of rock on stone. He felt its imminence in his bones, like a thunderstorm.

* * *

At Ostagar's southern gates, the Cousland brothers looked across the courtyard at the deep crescent knocked out of the stonework. They commanded a mixed force of Chasind and Highever fighters: Nathaniel's men, and those who had been part of Channon's rebellion. Many of these were lightly-armoured Elven servants turned archers: remnants of the Highever and Amaranthine Alienages. Destroying Caladrius' operation had begun as strategy: starve Howe of income and starve him of options. It had become something more.

_How strange that these brave people - Chasind and Elves - have existed in our shadow for so long, overlooked._

Well, that must change. Ferelden was changing: the war forced it to. Channon and Fergus had discussed a plan to grant land in the North to both peoples. Queen Anora was shrewd - she would see the sense in it. The Dalish too - a group of rebels from Clan Ilrae had helped train their city brethren. The plan to deprive Howe of income had worked so well the Arl had been forced to relocate the slaver ring in Denerim. It was there the Arl had captured she who brought him to his doom. A thin smile curled Channon's lip. To be denied the chance to avenge himself personally was disappointing - but there was also something just about such an ignominious death. Like Nathaniel, he knew full well the killer had not been Loghain. The Clan Ilrae rebels had aided the Elves rescued by the Warden, brought them safely through Amaranthine and on to her camp by the Hafter River. Channon had spoken to many of them. He only wished he'd had the chance to work with Rilian. _The Dark Wolf and The Red Fox._

Highever Castle - Soldier's Peak - Vigil's Keep: between them, they formed a stone wall to deny invasion by sea. That wall would soon be tested, Channon thought grimly. It was one thing to welcome chevaliers who came as wedding guests - Channon had agreed with Bryce's support of Cailan's marriage to Celene - something else to sit back and allow invasion. For the Empress to expect them to cower like mabaris when faced with her whip hand was bare insult. The rumours of Chantry support were worse still. Channon was a believing man - supported an international Chantry - but in return expected them to be above national politics. Mother Leanna turning a blind eye to Howe's atrocities - to the death of Mother Mallol! - so long as the tithes flooded in was even lower. Fury burned in him. A Revered Mother - now Grand Cleric of Ferelden - part of that. It was unacceptable. Wrong.

He sought his brother in the flame-lashed, shrieking night: held out the Highever blade, hilt first. "This is yours, I believe."

"No, little brother. You've earned it." Fergus' eyes went involuntarily to the spiderwork of scars that disappeared into Channon's mail.

"My scars cannot be an argument against birthright. Besides: I brought my own." He drew Starfang from its sheath. Moon-pale, the blade that was made of no metal - not even Dragonbone - glimmered like light hammered into steel. He thought of something the Highever smith, Nelaros, had once said: _fire and hammer alone can't make good steel. The mind of the smith determines. _Channon had discovered the Elven man was right. _What makes trial memorable isn't survival: it's the use we make of it. Those of us who survived the massacre have had to make better steel of ourselves than most. Or break. _

"Why, little brother: you've been holding out on me!" Fergus' eyes were wide in mingled wonder and irritation.

Channon smirked.

Above the ramparts, the sky was thick and black with taint that spread sluggishly from the west. Fortunately, the air was too still to allow much movement. Channon knew a moment of relief they weren't facing what the Templars were dealing with.

Relief ended quickly.

The darkspawn forces appeared to be dividing - parting into a new formation, with a space between them wide as a house.

"Does the Hurlock General think it can lure us out there?" Fergus muttered incredulously, "Does the monster think we're crazy enough to let them hit us from both flanks?"

"No," Channon said, very clear and calm, "They are making room."

"Room for…"

In the clear space between the horde, a monster appeared. An enormous armoured ogre. Huge eyes, insatiable and raging. Teeth dripping taint in a maw big enough to swallow horses. It gave a roar of hideous outrage, howling so fiercely the fortress itself rang. Then it lumbered forward at the head of its eight brethren. In spite of training and determination, experience and courage, the soldiers in the front lines broke into panic.

The ogres' hands reached down - grabbing victims, sweeping others left and right. Teeth were loud as detonations as they bit through steel and bone. Helpless to save themselves, the ranks of Bannorn infantry, Chasind and archers came apart like water and began flooding in all directions. Their cries were everywhere: hoarse and frantic. Doomed.

Channon saw the sight set Loghain afire. Alistair beside him, the Teyrn barked like a trumpet: "Cousland and Bryland! Rally your men. We must stop this panic! _Bring me my horse_!"

Galvanized by the shout, Alistair raced for his own mount while two dumbstruck squires hauled Loghain's suddenly frightened charger forward. In another moment, both men were gone, spurring their horses into the face of an army transformed to tumult and chaos. Loghain didn't rage at the ogres, didn't rail at his men. He simply rode hard - rode _conspicuously_ - between them and the line of ogres, his sword bright in his hands. Loghain and Alistair rode as close to the monsters as they dared, so close their mounts snorted foam and quivered. And there the Teyrn raised his voice like a war-horn against the hoarse screaming and the panic, the white-eyed and unreasoning dread.

"Rally to your captains! These beasts cannot finish us! They cannot finish _me_ - and I am closer to them than you are!"

Channon, briefly, knew a pang. _If I had possessed that presence, could I have rallied Highever Castle? _The wistful question faded quickly: he had work to do.

Channon and Fergus split up, each man organizing his soldiers from the captains down. Arl Bryland did the same. The sight of their leaders on the front lines, impervious to horror, had a palpable impact.

Loghain's fierce, throat-ripping war cry split the night.

Fergus' Chasind gathered at the left flank in their standard three-prong formation: one shorter column flanked by two longer lines of mounted archers. The Highever troops gathered to their right, supported by Elven archers. On the battlewalk, the bowmen led by Sister Leliana and the Dalish woman Shianni loosed continuously. Shianni sent a shaft straight down the throat of a Genlock emissary. Immediately, she was the focus of attention. A flurry of darkspawn arrows narrowly missed her. Beside her, Dworkin lobbed Blackpowder jars into the horde. When these collided with the magic of the Dalish Keepers, inferno raged. Fire was general. Roiling plumes climbed into the purple sky. Behind them, part of the stone collapsed on top of one of the pumps brought to a point of greatest danger.

Channon fought his way toward Alistair and Loghain with workmanlike determination. His men managed to reach and hold a mound of rubble that afforded him a clear view of their struggle. He also saw the endless ranks of darkspawn between. Fergus reached the same position, grinning through his blood-caked beard, dark eyes inflamed with combat madness. His Chasind were pleading with him to rush the spawn.

"Let us go down to them now!"

"They are close - let us go!"

"Quiet down, you madmen - you'll not go a hundred paces before they cut you down," Channon snapped impatiently. Loghain, Alistair and the Bannorn troops were fighting to stay alive until the flanking armies reached them. But there were nearly a thousand spawn between the Cousland brothers and the Teyrn. They had less than half that. The Bannorn soldiers saw it too. The thought that Alistair and Loghain had already lost filled the valley with panic again, paralyzing a large portion of Ferelden's troops. And the Chasind riders had to contend with horses that were wild with fear, maddened by the stink of taint in their nostrils. In one sense, Channon knew, they were lucky to have got as close as they had. In another, it made no difference - they didn't have enough to reach the Teyrn and turn the tide of battle.

"Channon - cover me," muttered Fergus, "I'm going to outflank them and lob a few Blackpowder jars into the rear."

Channon caught his arm so hard that Fergus winced.

"You take one step and I'll break Starfang over your head! You're as bad as your Chasind. Now keep quiet and let me think."

The solution came to him as clearly as a winning move in chess. Channon had always been able to outplay his father and brother. Only his mother had been unbeatable.

"I'll send for Voldrik's trebuchet," he told Fergus, "We'll pack it with Blackpowder. You and I and a dozen Chasind will push the thing in front of us. These Elven gentlemen will cover us: we'll do this thing in style."

Fergus and his men roared their approval of the scheme and a white-horse rider was sent. Soon, Voldrik's team appeared, pushing the enormous structure like a giant toy chariot. Inside, the Blackpowder had only to be lit. Channon thought of his favourite of all Nan's stories: not the one about Harhaku she had told over and over again but one in which King Calenhad had sent an enormous wooden horse to his enemies, a deadly cargo hidden inside. Chasind jostled each other to find a place behind. Channon and Fergus grabbed as much Blackpowder as they could carry and nodded to each other.

Ponderously, the wheeled trebuchet lumbered forward, gathering speed with slow inevitability as they ran behind it. Its coverings of woven mats and bound saplings shielded it. Darkspawn arrows rattled like hail against the wood but did not penetrate. Several yards apart, suspended from thick rope, the mats were free to swing under impact. The sling arm, at rest, was hidden too. The Chasind warriors were chanting. Oddly, their warpaint mirrored the howling darkspawn: black-eyed, skull-faced, bloody-mouthed fiends. Fergus, abandoned to the primal revelation of combat, screamed with them. After a moment, the normally controlled Channon joined him. When they reached the ground that sloped downwards into the valley they touched the first of the Blackpowder jars inside the war-machine with a burning torch. Then let go. The structure creaked and groaned - rolled like a juggernaut - downward into the thickest part of the dark mass. Channon and Fergus lobbed individual Blackpowder jars in high, glittering, sparkling arcs. They threw again, while arrows rained down on the mass of spawn. The trebuchet crashed into the centre of the horde and they squealed around it. In another moment, the entire structure was split by an ear-rending crack. Balls of flame billowed high. It was a river of lava in reverse, pouring towards the dark sky. The night itself lightened to a fierce, murky red. The light clashed with the Blightstorm to become a roiling red-and-black mass - almost a living entity. Within, battling men and darkspawn were rust-coloured shadows - as if made of nothing but blood, like flayed men. Bags of flesh, trying to hold in their own lifeblood - condemned to see it spilled on the ground with profligate abandon. _Is this how Avernus saw us?_

The sight chilled Channon - but it inflamed him also. It seemed to cut to the heart of a death-struggle beyond politics or vengeance. This was the survival of one species against another. Nature red in tooth and claw. Gone was the need to mourn men killed or maimed doing his bidding. Gone the need for fear, for shame, for self-doubt. The Chasind followed the destruction, spreading out, still screaming, their swords and spears busy. Fergus and Channon ran with them.

Their blood sang, boiling with the joy of the hunting pack.

* * *

At the head of the army in the southern valley, Ravenous beside him, Loghain stared up into his own death.

He had no weapon to pierce the armour of the orge Alpha: the monster was encased in the volcanic aurum only found in the deepest of deep roads. There had been another time like this - when Loghain and his Night Elves had faced armoured, mounted chevaliers with wooden stakes and wearing rags. But that wasn't important. What mattered was his army, dissolving into panic. He had to do something to quell the chaos. And they were going to die anyway unless he found a defense against this creature.

One thing at a time. Death later was preferable to death now. In the space between, he could plan. The army had to be saved now.

So he called for his horse, brought by two frightened squires. He placed his hands upon the long rippling muscles of the neck - threw his right leg over - he was up. Alistair beside him, rode his white Orlesian destrier. Suddenly, something from behind nearly bowled Loghain over. Whipping round, he found himself looking into the dark, wide eyes of Ravenous. Rearing on hind legs, pawing the air, the mabari literally _demanded_ to be with his new master. Loghain laughed; ran his gauntleted left hand along the bristly fur of the square head.

"What do you say, my boy?" he asked, "Are you ready to bring the ogres the death they're asking for?" Ravenous yipped in delighted assent. Loghain kicked his horse into a gallop, matched by Alistair, Ravenous beside them. He led them as close as he dared - so close he could feel the ogre's breath sweep over him; could smell its intense, rank stink.

_"Rally to your captains! These beasts cannot finish us! They cannot finish _me_ - and I am closer to them than you are!"_

Behind him, the ogre opened its maw and howled. Somehow, he sent his call through the roar, demanding and clarion.

The scene in front of him still looked like chaos. The hoarse screams went on, full of fear. But Loghain had an experienced eye: he could see the state of the army changing. The Cousland brothers and Bryland held their ground; rallied their captains. The captains yelled for their men - more and more began struggling through the press towards them. When these reached the critical threshold, the army was suddenly transformed: no longer a rout interrupted by islands of order but an army vigorously quelling its own chaos.

The army was like a prophecy: resolving towards cohesion out of a swirl of prescient parts.

Prophecy.

Loghain regarded Alistair; seemed to hear once more Flemeth's dry, cruel, ancient voice: _Keep him close and he will betray you. Each time worse than the last…_

He had hunted the man beside him…sent assassins to kill him…never checked on Eamon's treatment of the child. Maric's son.

"Whew, that was close," Alistair breathed, "Thought we'd lost them. Now what?"

"We must not lose them again! We must retreat in order: let Voldrik's catapults take them out."

Alistair shook his head impatiently, "Won't work. In that time the ogres'll be tearing through Ostagar itself. As soon as you try, we're lost." As an afterthought, he added, "_General_." It was amazing how many nuances he managed to squeeze into the last word: somehow it came out a title, a challenge, and a borderline insult all at once. The flash in his hazel eyes might have been sarcasm - or a wild love of risk.

"Then what?" Loghain snapped, "_Warden_."

Alistair's eyes flashed. "Ril and I were fighting ogres together since Ostagar. I'd stand there and look pretty - bulldancer against bull - she'd dash between their legs and hamstring them. Ravenous would guard her back." He smiled at some private memory.

After a moment, Loghain caught Alistair's mood and smiled too.

As the creature charged them, roaring, flinging rocks that they barely dodged, Loghain darted between the wide-splayed legs, head down against the churned-up dust and snow, with sword out to his right and razor-edged shield out to his left. Both edges got the creature in the vulnerable joins at the knees. He carried on, bowling through like a juggernaut till safely past. Whirled back to watch the creature sink to its knees. Alistair leapt high, sword leading. Using the ridges on the ogre's armour as handholds, he climbed till he was staring right into its jaws. Seeing them face to face, images of Cailan's death rose in Loghain's mind like vomit. But Alistair was not Cailan - the skill of the wily Warden altered time and memory. He shoved his sword through the open maw, right up to its hilt, before the massive hands could crush him. Then landed on top of the collapsing behemoth and howled in triumph.

In a piece of time jagged and eternal as memory, Loghain was somewhere else:

_...From his position in the front rank, facing the Orlesian charge, Loghain stared, transfixed. The grotesquely caparisoned warhorses looked huge; their hooves __pounded the dry ground. Atop them chevaliers behind blank, soulless visors raised a metallic cry. Armour glittered, bright and relentless. Loghain yelled back, instinctively. Their motley troop of farmers and Elves yelled too: a sound half-bellow and half-scream. The animal smell of fear rolled off them in waves: so different from the acrid, feral tang men threw off before an even fight. This carried the dampness of panic-sodden hopelessness. They stared at Loghain with the desperation of drowning men, their eyes orbs of raw terror. Loghain met them one by one._

_"We can do this," he told them; not pleadingly but with granite certainty. The world shifted beneath his feet; he felt suddenly strange, as though all the strength were draining from his body. They were pulling it out of him; demanding it. He gave it gladly; all the strength he had in him, and then some. The last eyes he saw were Maric's._

_"Steady," he grated past blade-thin lips, the iron conviction of his voice carrying over the noise, cutting through their fear, "Hold. _Hold_..."_

_The approaching cavalry filled his whole vision: death approaching in a maelstrom of stamping hooves and flying earth and lewdly glittering steel._

_"NOW!"_

_At the signal, the men knelt to the ground in the face of the cavalry nearly on them. As if by magic, they formed a wall, raising the wooden stakes that had remained hidden at their feet until that moment. The longest, held by the men in the rear rank, were fully twenty feet long. The first and second ranks held correspondingly shorter ones. When the butts were pressed against the earth, the points were a uniform barrier of sharpened, hardened wood. Unable to stop, and with many too brave to try, the first horsemen crashed into it. Those behind piled in to them. Instantly, Loghain's men were on them - cleavers, daggers, kitchen knives flashing._

_Some of the chevaliers had gained their feet, unhurt. Maric roared a challenge at the nearest. The eighteen-year-old prince looked gawky and untrained next to the iron monolith advancing - but he spread his purple cloak as if in challenge: bulldancer against bull. The knight rushed him, eager to claim the Rebel Prince's head. The midday sun turned sword and armour and helm to white brilliance._

_Loghain swept past the tableaux, his own leather armour dark and indistinct. He came past the knight's left side, slashing his blade downward toward the armour join at the back of the knee. The man gave a shrill, agonised scream; sank to the earth. Maric was on him - stabbing the point of his blade through the gap in the visor..._

"You know," Alistair was saying, bringing Loghain back to the present, "Duncan told me something about darkspawn. They're not an army - the Archdemon is no General. The dragon's memories rise like bubbles from a dying mind, draw the spawn to the surface. They cannot plan for failure, you see. Failure would mean being shut back in the darkness, away from the only light they'll ever know. An army that cannot fail cannot succeed."

Loghain considered this a foolish piece of philosophy - and gratuitous, too - but, knowing how this man had unaccountably admired Duncan, refrained from saying so. Neither had time for debate. Together, men and mabari charged. Not towards the impossible safety of the army, engaged in its own death-struggle with the darkspawn who surged round them - but straight at the remaining ogres. For a split second, Loghain had the chance to be relieved Alistair was beside him, longsword ready, eyes bright for battle. Then General, Warden and dog crashed headlong into the massive living wall.

They kept going so well Loghain felt a rush of joy at the way they tag-teamed the ogres, the way their swords struck, their darting, dodging and sudden surges through the attack. Ravenous darted and leapt between them like a dun-coloured flame: guarding when they could not guard themselves, harrying attackers. The ogres seemed one massive single creature with too many eyes, too many fists. And their hate was palpable: a consuming heat. Nonetheless, they were flesh-and-blood - they could be killed.

Loghain and Alistair cut to the heart of the attack and kept going, fighting shoulder to shoulder, as if together they had discovered something indomitable.

It was amazing, really, how many rocks they dodged, how many of the ogre grab attacks missed them. When one got hold of Loghain, about to squeeze the life out of him, Alistair stabbed upward right into the creature's groin. The shock of agony robbed the fists of power. All three tumbled together in a mass. Ravenous stood over them, baring his teeth against any that dared challenge. The General and Warden rose quickly, fighting back to back against those that remained. The grate and stab told Loghain he had broken a rib - maybe two - but it didn't matter. Details like that had lost their importance: he had left them behind along with the ache in the fingers he could no longer completely straighten, the creak in his joints. Alistair was younger and stronger. But Loghain matched him blow for blow, swung and thrust as though the weight of steel transformed him, restored him to his prime.

It was amazing, too, how well Alistair fought. His face was splashed with black blood, dents dotted his armour, gore stained his arms. Yet he kept all harm away from Loghain.

_What a strange surprise. Alistair is far more like his father than Cailan was._

And, for a few precious moments, they succeeded against unbeatable odds. Alistair returned the glance with an odd expression: as though Loghain made sense to him at last. If everything else was lost, still, no-one would be able to change the fact that he and Maric's son had died side-by-side instead of at each other's throats.

Their success had to end. Two men and a dog could not survive against nine ogres - and the darkspawn blocked the three-pronged cavalry charge from reaching them. But then the momentum of the battle changed suddenly.

The Cousland brothers and their deadly cargo smashed a gap through the darkspawn lines. Bannorn, Elven and Chasind troops poured in. The look on Fergus' face was keen as a cleaver; he had the hands of a butcher. Channon was controlled, methodical - guarding his brother where he failed to guard himself, allowing Fergus to give full rein to his Berserker battlelust.

At last, the valley around them stood clear of darkspawn. A Highever knight raised a ragged cheer. Soon, the call rang from everywhere; stronger, surer.

Loghain and Alistair stood cloaked in silence, too exhausted to do anything but sink to their knees. Loghain removed his gauntlets from shaking hands, lowered his head into them. He heard in that quiet the relief and loss and fearful hope that comes to every combat survivor. The silence of the warrior: alive, assessing cost. The most precious of all moments, sullied only by the knowledge that it must pass. Must be repeated.

* * *

As Knight Commander Harith lurched towards the battlements and the line of mages, his distress drew Ines and Sweeney to him. He was doubled up, bent over in pain, coughing his lungs out. Both darkspawn blood and his own stained the froth that bubbled up. He warded off Ines' ministrations. "No time. Got to go Voldrik. Catapult. Rylock's order."

Ines stared - Sweeney stared - then their eyes went wide in sudden understanding. As one, they dropped the Knight Commander with a couple of Mindblasts and left him in the care of Keili and Petra.

"Her name is _Ellen_!"

Both mages ran from the battlements, into the field below where the death-struggle raged.

* * *

Rylock was calm, knowing that she only had to hold out a little longer for the catapult to get there and put an end to both her and the Hurlock General. Despite the blood that welled from shoulder, thigh, forearms, left side, and a gash across her forehead, she beat back the hot, steel lightning and force of the emissary's next attack. That defense cost her an exertion that seemed to shred her wounded side. Reeling, almost falling, she staggered backward, only just saved herself from tripping over the corpse of a dead darkspawn. She barely avoided the next attack - _barely_ - by running, lungs on fire, eyes full of sweat and blood, no life in her limbs, until she gained enough ground to turn and plant her feet and stand there wobbling to face the General for the last time. By bare will, she kept her sword up for the creature to play with.

Rylock didn't see what happened - her eyes were full of blood and taint - but there was a sudden clang and rush - and a couple of all-too-familiar voices:

"Get away from her, you foul thing, or you'll taste my magic!"

_I order catapults and I get mages! What's wrong with this picture?_!

"That's got'em!" Ines' triumphant shout. She heard shrieks from the darkspawn around the General as the mages cleared a path straight to it.

Then Sweeney's quavery voice, mumbling an incantation she did not know.

_As if one crazed magic-user isn't enough!_

As unsteady as a drunk, she stopped, locked both hands around her wet sword-hilt.

Almost retching for air, Rylock jerked forward and did her absolute best to split the Hurlock's head open.

Negligently, the creature blocked the blow. The force drove Rylock to her knees, the thud sounding dully like failure.

The emissary howled out a string of non-words, summoning a spell Rylock recognized as Stonefist. She rolled away from the full impact, but the shards splintered her right arm, broke fingers, snapped ribs. Consciousness came in bright, pulsing waves. Her body felt on fire, shot through with a separate agonies.

_Those two have doomed us: they won't be able to dispel the taint cloud or the wards - the General will get them and everyone else…_

She fought to stay awake, growling out a string of epithets so vile she startled herself. In all her forty years - more than half spent fighting maleficarum and demons - she had never felt the need to resort to language the Maker would not approve of. But if anything deserved it, it was this situation. She'd spent enough time with Loghain and Rilian to have a wide vocabulary.

Suddenly, she became aware of a strange shimmer around her that was not taint cloud. It passed through it, untouched. The writhing, air-borne droplets seemed to slow… Rylock seemed to slow… everything turned unreal and strange, like a dream where one moved in slow motion to escape something. The only thing that was quick was the footsteps of the old man, rushing into the bubble of taint, holding his breath. He did not cast - the lungful of air he got would have choked the words - he simply ran at the General clutching an old gnarled staff as though it made him mighty - a sword or scepter no-one could oppose. Rylock saw the General turn - impossibly slowly - to finish him. Groaning curses and agony, Rylock writhed forward, moving through slowed-down time - inched towards the creature's back. Had the General been facing her, it would have known it was safe - Rylock was barely able to crawl - but the creature could not know that. Forced to meet the threat to its back, it turned, ponderously, to finish the Templar. But Sweeney was too quick. In moments, he had thrust the Blackened Heartwood Staff right through the arm-hole of the Hurlock's mail.

The creature howled in agony - the glyphs and shields dissipated one by one as it lost concentration. Ines, standing just outside the cloud of taint, finished it with a Petrify.

Rylock pitched forward onto the stone hulk, so very tired. She felt the Maker's light surround her. It was safe to sleep now.

_Forgiven._

* * *

Rylock lay in the hospital wing, stunned by exhaustion and amazement into muted, uncomprehending silence as Wynne tended to her, to Harith - and to Sweeney who might or might not be tainted by close proximity to the cloud. Her eyes gazed into the whirling distance, tracking motes of torchlight like golden bubbles. Her world had changed around her, and she was no more capable of processing it than an animal could process a game of chess. She stared around: glad to see that many of her people had survived: Harith, Keili, Carrol, Thomas, Cullen, Rocald, Petra, Beric, Irving. Although she held the rank of Knight Commander, Rylock had never had a true command before. She had been raised high because of her success as a mage-hunter - a lone predator - she had never trained or managed men like Knight Commanders Greagoir, Tavish or Harith. She was proud of them, she realised with astonishment, as she stared at the sea of faces. Proud.

Ines and Wynne were quarrelling violently over Sweeney's treatment. Wynne was trying to persuade him to drink the Warden blood - the same mixture that had cured Harith. Ines was arguing fiercely against this. Rylock thought she'd never seen anything so stubborn as the look on Ines and Sweeney's faces - though a single glance in a mirror would have told her otherwise.

"I can't help you if you're going to be like this!" Wynne cried, exasperated.

"You're wrong," snapped Ines querulously - the two elderly Enchanters seemed to be merely continuing an argument of decades - "You always think flashy magic - special powers - are best. I'll show you what I can do with plain, simple, wholesome herbs. I'll make up the mixture Remille made for King Maric."

"That was nothing but a placebo!"

"Oh no. There was a grain of truth in it - it just didn't work as effectively as Remille made out. His mixture had perhaps a ten percent success rate - about the same as the swamp flower that cures mabaris, on which it was based. I bet _I _could improve it."

"Alright," said Wynne, grudgingly, "I'll let you try it. But if there's no improvement you're both taking the mixture. There'll be no argument."

Rylock smothered a smile - but she smiled too soon. Wynne had rounded on her next - planting an enormous vial of lyrium by her bedside. "For the pain. Enough in there to hold a horse."

Wynne's power had knit bone and flesh back together in a way little short of miraculous - but there were limits. Rylock was more bothered by the lack of movement in her right hand than by the pain. She suspected she would never wield a sword with her former dexterity. _A mace, perhaps._

She glared at Wynne. "To use the holy Waters of the Fade as a painkiller would be disrespectful. A Templar is supposed to take _one_ vial per day, no more."

"You'll have what _I_ think is best for you."

"I'm the Knight Commander!" Rylock exploded.

"Oh no," said Wynne - as though she had wanted to say this for the last twenty-two years - "You, Rylock, are the _patient_!"

Ines was looking at her, rolling her eyes in shared exasperation. "No sense in arguing with her," she sighed.

Rylock regarded the two old mages in thoughtful silence.

"I'm sorry, Rylock," Harith muttered from the bed beside her, "I never got the chance to relay your order. I'm not sure what happened. Must've been the taint."

"No matter." Rylock turned to Ines and Sweeney: "Your magic saved the battle - saved my life also. Thank you. I never knew any mages could be so...adventurous."

"We are not _any_ mages."

What Rylock didn't understand, she chose to ignore. "Yes," she said carefully, "I can see that. But I still don't know how you became aware, so quickly, that your help was needed."

"How? I can smell the fart of trouble coming before the Maker lets rip," Ines boasted.

"Such language is unseemly," Rylock snapped.

"Language!" Sweeney chortled, "I heard _your_ language as Ines and I came to help. I ought to wash your mouth out with soap, young woman!"

Rylock cast around for a suitable riposte and, finding none, subsided into sheepish silence. In the murky glow of the old temple, she watched as Loghain and Alistair moved through the rows of their men: talking with them, drinking with them, comforting the wounded and dying. They were both marked, but waved away Wynne's help, demanding she save her strength for "those who needed it". The Cousland brothers did the same; she also saw Rilian's cousin and a dark-haired Dalish hunter comforting their wounded. Three hooded Keepers moved among them, strange and alien, the torches they carried shrouding them in mystery. Sister Leliana, face bruised with exhaustion, was taking last confessions, performing the Rites for those beyond saving.

Alistair and Loghain ended by standing in the doorway, the mabari between them, staring out into the unspeakable detritus of war. Rylock decided to ignore Wynne's instructions to stay in bed and joined them. She supposed she did not cut a very imposing figure in her nightshirt, leaning on - of all things! - a mage's staff for balance. She carefully did not look around at those watching.

"It's over," Alistair was saying, as if he couldn't quite believe it, "When Nathaniel, Anders and Zev took out the darkspawn in Lothering Forest, it broke their stranglehold. And between the rest of us, we defended Ostagar. Ha!"

"It's not over," Loghain growled softly, "It will not be over until the end of the Archdemon."

Alistair said nothing, but Rylock read her own realization in his eyes: the war would not be over until Rilian was dead. Alistair must have already known this - but it was shocking to see all the life drain out of a man's face, like blood from a wound. As if the Warden's mabari understood the meaning, the dog nuzzled him, low, soft whine sounding oddly like human keening.

Loghain surprised her by putting a hand on Alistair's shoulder. He said: "It's the right fight; for the right reasons. We must not waste the chance she has given us. We'll march to Denerim at once - for if she fails, the capital must be defended at all costs."

Alistair's eyes were like lead: heavy and cold. "I know."

Shortly afterward, the battered survivors were stunned when three of Rilian's Wardens returned through Ishal, to tell them of the death of The Mother and of Rilian's journey into the deeps. Wynne took the wounded Aveline into her care, working the same miracle on her injury as she had on Rylock's. Jowan assisted the healers. Ser Otto joined Rylock, Alistair and Loghain to describe the battle in the deeps, and Rylock bowed her head in prayer for Boann's soul and Rilian's.

Amid the snow and black ashes, the writhing Blightstorm overhead beginning to scatter like a thousand bats, the torches of Ostagar wavered and blended, winking out behind swirls of taint only to burst into brightness again. They were in a disperse cluster, their constant shifting giving them and the pale grandeur of stone a mysterious, transient quality. Changeable as the past that made Ostagar stand for failure and betrayal - and the present that made it stand for unity. The Bannorn, the Chasind, the Howes and the Couslands, the mages and Templars, had fought together. A Chasind funeral drum throbbed. It contained the steady thud of a human heart. The flaring belligerence of the war-beat had faded to grief; the torches were a listless pale glimmer. Lights went on in healing tents and wagons, transforming canvas tops to massive golden-light lanterns. The weary, stunned survivors were spectral creatures drifting through the darkness, seeking solace in company. Several formed a circle. Soon, there were flames within that enclosure. Pyres. Committing the dead.

In a baffled need to articulate her sense of holy mystery, Rylock said abstractedly:

"Sister Leliana told me of a vision. Of a rose that bloomed from a dead white branch, untouched by decay. Of an impenetrable darkness. Of plunging toward the Void. Of seeing the Maker not through a glass darkly, but face to face."

She expected Loghain to scoff, but to her surprise he only nodded. "Visions and prophecies. They seem to always stand in need of interpretation." He smiled. It was a distant, thoughtful expression.

* * *

_Song inspirations were:_

_Zevran, Nathaniel, Anders mission: The Stones - Midnight Rambler_

_Nathaniel and Zev: Adam Lambert - By The Rules_

_The Last Battle: Sinead O Connor - Hold Back The Night_

_One of the things I regret about this chapter is that, because of my wish to cram everything in, there wasn't space to expand on all of the characters and themes that interest me. One is the story of Thomas Amell. Another is the back-story of Anders and Karl. With the latter, I'm lucky that it's already been done beautifully: analect's version in Ephemera is, to me, canon. It never occurred to me to wonder how the dead mages were disposed of in the Circle Tower until I read Arsinoe's horrific description in Victory at Ostagar. I think her theory must be true - the Tower is in the middle of a lake, and there are no urns with the names of former Enchanters found in the basement._


	25. Chapter 25: Apotheosis

_"It is a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done. It is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known."_

Sydney Carton, in "A Tale Of Two Cities".

Charles Dickens.

The Legion of the Dead entered Ortan Thaig from the south. Long, narrow tunnels of cobwebs and grey stone brushed Rilian's memory with the lightness of moths. She remembered Loghain's stories too - and realised the far-eastern tunnel leading past the grave of Wilhelm Trialmont that had held his blade Topsider's Honor must be where he and Maric had entered all those years ago. The spiders both she and Loghain had faced had not yet returned; nonetheless, the tunnels echoed with pounding feet. Rilian could sense the weight of the horde descending, like thunder in her bones.

All was quiet till they reached an enormous statue of a paragon built into sheer rock. It stood nestled within a twisting column of stalagmites that reached all the way to the cavern ceiling, like a god holding up the world, and Rilian was reminded of nothing so much as the branches of the Vhenadahl. She caught Sarela's eye in a moment of shared reflection. But it was here that the peace ended. Clearly, now, they could hear the drum-beat - smell the hot, tar-like stickiness and rank atavism of taint...and Rilian and her Wardens could also sense the deep inward prickle as the web of the hive-mind roared to life.

"They are moving toward West Hill," she said flatly.

"We will hold them here," Kardol told her. Rilian stood in profound silence. Was the Legion heroic or insane? Who would ever be able to judge this absolute sacrifice?

Sarela, strangely, was smiling. "This is where the paragon Caridin was born. A pity the horde spoil the view. We won't be able to really appreciate it."

As her fellows remained silent and uninterested, she snapped: "You're in Ortan Thaig! Wake up! Think how long our people have dreamed of this!"

"We're about to face the darkspawn front lines," Kardol said sourly, "The paragon smith will have to wait."

Sarela turned white with anger. "It's that kind of defeatism that has brought our people to this! Orzammar is already lost inside your heads, but you've got to fight anyway, whether you want to or not."

"Shut up, Princess!" shouted one or two voices, "If your brother wants us to defend his city, let him treat us like normal soldiers!"

"You're a bunch of whining nuglets! The whole time I've been with you, you've done nothing but whine. If you had chosen to accompany the Warden to the Anvil, we might have had some golems for our trouble! I could have "persuaded" her, I'm sure! Still, you'll fight, whatever the cost, and I'm the one who's telling you - because you have no choice. There's no other way."

She might have been Loghain, Rilian thought sadly, fierce patriotism etched in stone. He had told her the motto of the rebellion: _sooner dead than changed_. She thought he would have liked Sarela. People who have embraced one idea and one idea only could live only by that idea. Beyond it, they had nothing but their memories.

Kardol stood up. "Yes, Sarela, we'll fight - because we can't stand the idea of defeat any more than you can. And because we're already dead. There is no other way - not for me, anyway. I'm part of a machine that operates a certain way, and a certain way only - and I've been a part of it for too long."

The cause that Kardol spoke of was Rilian's own. She knew a strong sense of solidarity with them, and could think of her own inevitable death without too much flinching - a soothing veil that would fall slowly over her and all the horrors of the recent past. Her head seemed to be filled with a milky fog, which was without joy, but which suddenly made everything easy. Did the Legion feel the same? Rilian wasn't sure - but the calm acceptance seemed general.

They marched through the grey cavern, its layers of cobwebs weighted by dust of ages, to the dark, dank river that flowed a mile beneath. Two curved, sturdy bridges were the only way across.

"This," said Kardol, "Is where we hold them. This is where we fight. This is where they die! Earn these shields, boys! Give them nothing - and take from them..._everything_!"

They had about an hour to prepare before the spawn reached them, and set up the portable wooden barriers packed with Blackpowder. The crossbowmen dug in - loosing from the windows of stone ruins. The front ranks gathered several rows deep at the two access points, in _testudo_. Unable to join that formation without her head sticking up over the top, Rilian left it to Oghren, who for once saw the necessity. She set up Dworkin's crossbow several metres behind the rear ranks, joined by Carver and Alim. They had but one ballista, which bore the impact of many darkspawn blades. The Legion had often rescued the old machine from contests that were too unequal, and held it in respect for the service it still performed.

Kardol and Sarela had made up their differences; Rilian heard the two low voices overlaying the tapestry of incessant sound. They agreed that death at Ortan Thaig would seem a relief and a release - a more orderly end then death in the warren-like maze of tunnels further on. The pounding of the darkspawn march was a background through which everything else was filtered, like rain. They even managed to snatch mugs of hot water with some stale bread.

"And to think," Sigrun muttered, "I volunteered for the food." Rilian smiled at her, recognising the brand that marked her as casteless. Sigrun had added to it with her Legion tattoos: turning what to Orzammar was a mark of shame to one of pride.

Rilian was just biting into her share when the hot, wet stink of taint exploded through her senses. The others didn't need the warning. The almost sluggish mass of Dwarves stood up in a single movement. Those lucky enough to have already received their food wolfed it down hastily. The spawn descended like a river of moving earth vomited from the deeps. The ballista crew concentrated on the ogres. Each time one fell it took the surrounding darkspawn with it, in a cacophony of shrieks that echoed and re-echoed, bouncing off the arcs, curving walls, statues and houses in the Thaig. Blackpowder explosions flared in the unreal half-blackness, lit only by two enormous stone braziers by the paragon statue. Up and down alternated to the rhythm of the flames that slashed the darkness. Rilian concentrated on dropping the emissaries; Dworkin's crossbow bounced off the first couple of glyphs, but the glyphs always ran out before her ammunition did. When they exploded, they showered the tableaux with sparks bright as day, reducing the luminous brilliance of the Blackpowder explosions.

The front ranks of the Legion fell, arms flung outward and sightless eyes fixed for the last time upon the dust-shrouded stone ceiling. Sigrun had carefully set up her own crossbow from a position in the ruins of a Dwarven house, no more than three feet high. From time to time, she brushed her bangs of dark hair from her white face with the back of her hand. She was calm. No matter how intense the grief caused by the deaths of particular comrades, the expression on her worn face never changed. Rilian understood. She, too, was filled with horror like water in a barrel. When the barrel was overflowing, all the torments in the world had no power to add to its capacity.

Three ogres clambered over the corpses in front, while Rilian and her Warden archers fired over the heads of the second rank. Carver was almost as skilled with his bow as he was with his greatsword. Alim – whose arrows were given wings by magic - rained ruin down as Shartan must have done. All the while, he hummed an obscene Elven ditty that Rilian did not know but rather wished she'd had time to learn. Oghren and Sarela worked in tandem - an odd but inspired pairing - and brought down the first ogre Alpha. Rilian blinded the second with a bolt through the eyes; it spun in a crazed, blind circle. The third hurled a boulder large as a horse. It crashed with sickening inevitability upon the space where a mass of the Legion fought - unable to escape through the press of bodies all around them. Rilian would forever hear the screams that rang through the demented confusion of roars and flame. The survivors swarmed round the monster, hamstringing it, breaking kneecaps with hammers, dragged it down like a slowly toppling column.

Rilian only felt numb - unable to grieve for the fallen while all their lives hung in balance. For the others, the battle went on. Everything that still possessed a shred of flesh-and-blood or mechanical life continued this final stand. The rest - the merely wounded or dying - watched with glassy, burning eyes that stared with strange fixity as the chaos. The buildings to the south and east were used as makeshift hospitals. Ortan Thaig lived once more, within the swirl of flames, the cobweb-darkened ceiling, the throb of darkspawn feet, and the terror.

The hours went by. To Rilian the sounds of battle drowned out all the noises of the world - her mind was empty beneath her filthy helm. She had the inchoate sense that, after this, nothing of her would remain. Ortan Thaig was the tomb of her life, with only the infinite beyond.

It was in this state that she became aware of Sigrun's shout of warning - and of Kardol's order: "Bring that thing down!"

Incredibly, the danger came from behind them. Rilian whirled to look - the gracile, skeletal form approached with horrible inevitability. Every missile she and Sigrun loosed at the Architect merely bounced off the creature's wards.

"Do not kill me. I wish no more death than is necessary."

"Necessary!" Rilian spat, "As if you have ever done anything else!"

"If you will not accept my aid, you will die here - and what you mean to do will be left undone. Let me help you."

"Help me!" Rilian screamed wildly, half-laughing, "Help me where? Into the Void?"

"Precisely." The calm assurance was like water thrown over her hysterical levity. "I know you mean to kill Urthemiel. That is my goal too - has always been my goal. Instead, I became the dragon's liberator and poisoner. But together we can do what one alone could not."

"Don't do it, Warden!" Sigrun shouted, "Allying with this creature just reeks of stupid!"

Rilian's voice held a granite certainty - but the hand she put on Sigrun's shoulder was confiding, binding. "If I don't stop Urthemiel now we will not be able to hold the spawn back. I would never ally with the Architect's goals - but I don't see as we have much to lose, now." She smiled without humour. "What's the worst that could happen? This...thing cannot make of me what it made of Boann and Duncan: I can become neither a Broodmother nor a Father. The worst I could become is a darkspawn - and what's one more?" She turned back to the Architect.

"How?" she asked.

In answer the emissary held up a curious object: the black brooch it had shown her at Ostagar. It glistened and writhed like an inky pearl - or a black poppy. Rilian remembered how that brooch had hidden Wardens and darkspawn from each other, and understood.

"Then why?" she finished.

"Because you showed me I cannot create life from death. What would you do in my place save try to serve life in the only way you could?"

..._W__e Elves may be a dying breed - it may be true that humankind will reap the whirlwind, the future dreams and life on Thedas. Should I care that my descendants will have rounded ears and heavy bones? No. The best part of us: the stories, the honest purpose, the honour, goes on._...

"The sons of dreams outlive the sons of seed."

Rilian slowly put out her hand - her right hand. The left bore Nelaros' ring and Boann's bracelet. The Architect slipped the brooch onto a chain around her wrist.

Kardol stared at her without comment, dark eyes lifeless in his white, sweat-streaked face. He said only, "I will send Sigrun to Orzammar - the Last Of The Legion - to warn them to be ready if you fail."

Rilian chose to send her surviving Wardens to Denerim for the same purpose. Alim and Carver were walking wounded – a single ogre missile had splintered Alim's left side and Carver's right. She suspected Oghren had sustained hidden wounds, though her friend waved away help with grim, stoic determination.

"I'm not going anywhere, Warden."

"Oghren..."

"I can't be a mad scientist – or serve Ferelden's army. They'd never put up with me. I'm not cut out for marriage. I'm staying put."

Rilian had always thought Oghren capable of adapting to anything, in his usual inimitable style. Now he seemed to be saying he could live only for the city that had already cost him so much.

"You took a drunken disgrace of a Dwarf and made him a Warden," Oghren went on – and she realised it wasn't for the city of Orzammar at all. "When from the blood of battle the Stone has fed, let the heroes prevail and the blighters lie dead. As one of the blighters, I sodding salute you. We'll show them our hearts – and then show them _theirs_."

She left him standing beside Kardol and Sarela, part of the grim wall of the front rank, weapons bristling in anticipation of the next surge. She saluted them, and Kardol and Sarela responded with a brief nod. They would know how to die, because they had known how to live in the Legion. She didn't worry about it.

* * *

The tunnels beyond were timeless. Rilian seemed to float through them alongside the Architect, like a shadow or her own ghost. She had the curious sense that she had died - left her body behind at Ortan Thaig. One moment it was all that world: the noise and screams and confusion - the stink of darkspawn in her nostrils - their fetid breath as they rushed her. Now the creatures passed by as if she did not exist - or were one of them. There was an odd itching upon her right forearm, but it was too dark too see. Her stomach rumbled - stale bread did nothing for the Warden appetite - but she had never felt less like eating. She merely followed the Architect deeper through the mass of the horde - into the tunnel at the northern end of the Thaig, where she had once fought giant spiders. Beyond, two roads stretched before her. Caridin's Cross led to Orzammar to the north and on to the Trenches to the west. They took the western path, and her strange ally led her down a maze of side-tunnels that had been too dangerous to traverse as a mere mortal. Now, she was becoming - something else...

Ever since she had put it on, the brooch had seemed to her a living thing, something that knew her - waited quietly but with terrible awareness, like a stalking darkspawn that has caught a scent. Its mere presence made all her nerves and sinews feel tight-strung: a black beating heart that only she could hear. Faint air-currents from long-ago Dwarven shafts fluttered her hair like cobwebs, brushed past like a murmuring, insubstantial crowd. She hurried, blind, after the one who led her, running her fingers lightly over the taint-slick stone. A light was out of the question - would have made her recognisable as _not-theirs._

Dream and reality seemed interwoven - the shut-in, thick, breathless dark awash in chittering ghosts. Once, a darkspawn passed within a few feet of her, its rotting arm brushing hers in the dark. The Song was inside her now, in everything. She could hear Urthemiel's unearthly music - and, fainter, the Call of Razikale and Lusacan, unrisen. When they passed closer to the Blightwound where the Archdemon rallied the spawn, she recognised the deeper touch of warmth against her cheeks and eyes. She remembered the lava that had flowed beneath the Trenches, like a red-gold river. Now all colours seemed faded; the only tones remaining were red and black. There was a film between her and the universe, as though everything were covered in grease.

She remembered the thrill of terror when passing this way with Alistair, Morrigan and Wynne...remembered the exhaustion and the hastily-bolted rations. Now, she needed neither rest nor food. As she trudged along, her head seemed full of seductive poisonous music: the memories of the dying hulk that slipped from its decaying mind like febrile bubbles. They called the horde - not consciously, but simply by their nature as the only light the spawn could know. Their distant ancestors had once been men - some buried part of them yearned for that light as a candle lures moths from darkness, inhales them to consuming heat. And, conversely, when a critical threshold had gained the surface, the dying creature would follow them, driven by the will of its disease to congeal like droplets of blood.

For many months she had heard this music only in darkspawn dreams, but now it came in her waking hours, driving away even the chittering noises that were her constant companions in the darkness. Her life was little more than echoes and shadows, cold stone, and the tapping and scraping of her own footsteps. But the Song lived - and somehow its life was more powerful than her own. She wanted to be near it.

The realisation brought her out in a cold sweat - she almost tore off the brooch.

"This!" she cried - not aloud but in the silence of the link she shared with the Architect, "I am going through my Calling!"

"Yes."

"But don't you see: I might not be able to make the Ultimate Sacrifice this far into the cycle of infection! As a darkspawn, the creature will rise again, through me."

She sensed, rather than saw, the curiously human movement of the Architect's head - tilted up and a little leftward. It considered this. Then sent back something that astonished her.

"Speak to me of love," it said.

"?!"

"The images you showed me - of your former life. The way of the Alienages seems to be based on the survival of the greater whole. That is so with us. But as I understand your way, such service to individual members of the collective may sometimes evolve into what I will call...for want of a better word...dedication. And from that dedication may sometimes spring love."

Rilian felt a pang of pity. Such tortuous reasoning to arrive at a conclusion which a person would come to naturally! Oddly, she thought of her conversations with Morrigan about this very thing...which led her mind, unwillingly, to Alistair. After everything that had happened, her mind was numb to that betrayal - but this talk of love... And why should she now think so strongly of the child?

Then she had it. Rilian's strict Andrastean beliefs insisted the child had a soul from the moment of its conception. But Morrigan had told her that what was relevant to its fate was not soul but self-awareness. The child would not have had enough to clash with the Archdemon. She did. She smiled, suddenly realising that the Architect's question had made her a person once more. _It doesn't matter how corrupted by taint I __become...I have thoughts and hopes and dreams...that will be enough._ She wondered, as well, how best to answer the question. This creature denied any chance for love deserved at least to understand it - to have all that was possible for it to have. She organised the random thoughts and images spilled by her mind into some semblance of cohesion, thinking of the bubbles of light within Habren's paperweight...and the way they were held together by something fragile as glass, to form a radiant whole.

"I grew up with my cousins, Soris and Shianni..."

* * *

The final twist of tunnel opened into a cavernous space - a universe where ground and sky seemed to have changed places. The ceiling was stone. Far beneath them lay a glittering expanse of heat and light brighter than stars and sun. The river of lava flowed, on and on, heating the air around in endless warm currents. There was the genesis of the horde - a seething mass of sluggish life that writhed, decayed and spawned all within a year, before the tiny, tainted lives winked out of existence. To be replaced by an endless succession. Avernus' and The Architect's words told her their ancestors stretched back across time as well as distance - back to the moment the Elves of Arlathan drank of the Tree of Life and birthed the taint...droplets that waited for a living host...carried to Thedas within the corrupted bodies of Corypheus and his magisters. And Corypheus had been captured and bred by the original Wardens of the Anderfels...used as a means to defeat the Tevinter Blood Magic and bring the nation to its knees. From this Order, the Inquisition had split...to continue the war by other means. And even those that continued learned at last that the cure for Blood Magic was worse than the disease. They could combat the First Blight because they had helped create it - and from this necessity the Wardens had been born.

Urthemiel was perched high, upon a bridge of rock many miles across. Above the dragon, a yawing mouth of stalactites swooped down like the teeth of gods. Shadows boiled on the colourless spread of black wings...serrated edges that reared like towering waves. She did not flinch, did not flee, though she knew they would annihilate her when they crashed. The dying mind flickered like a failing candle in a bitter wind.

_She realised - in a moment of soaring rapture - I am not afraid... It was better than music or maps or swordcraft - it was immortality..._

Strange, how the dream had come true. Alistair and Loghain were not with her in person but she sensed them nonetheless - fighting their own battles. And the fourth figure - obscure as her own shadow - the cold and sickening sense of kinship - that had come to pass also. She stared at the Architect and sent:

"The stalactites - if we could get up there..."

"I can. You must draw the Old God's attention..."

"How!" Rilian thought wildly, "Dance for it? Sing to it?" The levity choked as she remembered something: remembered the Litany of Adralla that had worked against demons and might work against darkspawn too. It was a crazy gamble - but not as crazy as trying to take on the monster toe-to-claw.

"Hurry," she pleaded.

The Architect rose on the wings of its magic, like a black angel. She felt the power of cataclysm building...building...the heat and light that turned even rock to diamond.

She stepped out, shaking, onto the bridge where the dragon waited - high above the marching minions. She was a speck - a mote of dust - and to dust she would return. The vast space swooped around her...she remembered her words to Loghain and thought, joyfully: _I was wrong. This feels like flight..._

The brooch shielded her from the dragon's notice - without the rage and jealousy of the taint-maddened for the living, she knew she showed up as no more than an unimportant insect - one of the mass that surged below. She could only hope the surprise of the Litany would enmesh the Archdemon before it changed its opinion. She felt, strangely, that this was a song she had been born to sing - and could never sing so well as now, with the Call engulfing her mind like a silver ocean. She was subsumed in the alien melody. For this moment, she and the dragon of beauty were one.

Rilian did not need to sing aloud. Her mind - linked with Urthemiel's - produced a range her throat could not hope to match: a wailing harmony where melodic lines and strings of dissonances and wry accidentals melded subtly into rich-textured resolutions. But she experienced it as sound. Slowly and tentatively at first, feeling her way through unfamiliar territory - scattering atonal spatters of notes like largess, delicate chromatic inchings-forward. As the great refracted eyes - the black orbs of a vast spider - fell on her, but did not challenge, her progressions grew swiftly surer, her singing more complex. As Urthemiel's mind slid into hers and she felt the burst of brilliant silver, the music spilled out as if she had been saving it for a long time: a wild, splendid, glittering fall. A silver rain that chimed like an orchestra, syncopated and precise, somehow trapping a more-than-symphonic meaning in the command behind it. She sang in her mind with delicate melody - the way she sang aloud - but she also sang with a power that could shatter stone, break the bones of the world. The Litany, like the Song, was something alive that she merely released from her caging mind, something that might turn on her if she relaxed her concentration. Relentlessly, she poured it out: a torrent of bright music, asynchronous weavings, low-voiced and high. And the aggregate net that had trapped demons and stopped abominations went taut as her command began to solidify - the dragon immured like an insect in amber. She knotted up loose ends, wove the net tighter, a seamless web. A silver mesh, through which the dark spaces of taint were squeezed out into strange fragments, alive but in locked rooms. By the time the Litany slowed, the final harmonies resolved and final chords stretching themselves to silence, the Architect was in position. She breathed in mingled terror and joy as the cataclysm wrenched the stalactites like spears from the stone ceiling - brought a dozen roaring downward to pierce the jagged spine. The force split the stone bridge upon which Urthemiel stood - flung her backwards like an insect toward the great wall of stone. But she felt the Architect's magic cushion her from destruction, like an unseen, gentle hand. He caught her and she floated with him, to land upon a shattered column.

The falling body of Urthemiel had driven the rest of the bridge downward to crush the horde below. The broken, dying dragon writhed and shifted, smearing purple blood upon the rock. She could land on its back, she realised, and drive Maric's blade deep into the twitching neck. She raised her sword high - that silver blade etched with bright runes. Against the engulfing dark, it glowed like the first rose of dawn.

_Each moment free from fear makes an Elf immortal..._

Then, suddenly, she was caught fast by the grip of magic. She struggled frantically - but she might as well have been encased in ice.

_"Maker damn you, Architect!"_

The thought he sent back to her was unrepentant: "_I must know_."

"Know what?"

"_Whether I have soul enough to be destroyed._"

Then the Architect floated down in eerie silence, balanced like a pale flying creature upon the twisted back, murmured words that turned his staff to a conduit of white lightning, and hard as diamond, and drove it downwards with all his weight behind it.

He screamed - shrilly - Rilian had never heard a scream like that before. Crying in agony, she would have pressed her hands to her ears if she could move - but the spell still held. Both forms seemed to meld and crawl and change like the melting wax of a candle. She saw the images of both distorting - their selves horribly pulled and torn - the dragon collapsing inward like a deflating skin and the thing that had been the Architect trying to grow, as if something struggled to burst from the captive frame. _A darkspawn shedding its larval form..._

But the Architect was more than a darkspawn - and Rilian was drawn into the titanic struggle - as if giant colours and weights drenched or tore her...

_...Lost, I'm lost, I'll be dissolved, I'll wander as a ghost forever..._

_...Terror...terror...defiance. Rage, rage against the dying of the light...I must know..._

_...Spirit once, seduced by the worship of the flesh-bags...fallen to earth...now cursed to be entombed in earth forevermore..._

In that moment, Rilian was all of them: the scrawny Alienage Elf who'd always yearned for the Spark - that note of unearthly music she caught at the corners of her mind...the being born from filth and suffering, watching his brethren struggle and howl and fight...tasting the salty tang of predation, of unity...hearing the vast low hum of chittering voices among whom he was forever a stranger...and the timeless being who had once been, like the Elves of Arlathan, a part of the Source. The Source: worshiped as the Maker - though it seemed to her now that all such views were a fabulous, intricate riddle representing a truth that could not be grasped.

_...She felt her musculature and skeleton fluidly rearranging themselves. It was like discovering a forgotten freedom - or immortality. She spread her wings and soared... _

The Old Gods, once part of the Source, had been seduced by the worship of the Tevinter magisters. Better to reign over flesh than serve as spirit. They had helped create the first forms of Blood Magic, the Reaver powers of the dragon cults...now twinned eternally with the taint created by the Elves in their attempt to resist, harnessed by the original Wardens for the same purpose. Taint and Blood Magic: forever two sides of the same coin. The demons that had once been Elves had refined and enhanced the original blood magic - offered it to the magisters as a poisoned chalice, to draw them to ruination and possession as they had ruined and possessed Arlathan. But beyond even their will, the will of the taint itself had moved with the blind instinct of disease to spread and multiply, carried by Corypheus and his descendants.

Except - the Architect was more than a host - and what he was overcame his origins. The vortex of pain and horror was changing now...becoming something brighter...she felt the Architect's soaring rapture as he received his answer...and felt, at the same time, the column of light burst out of the poisoned, decaying hulk.

She wondered, now, how she had ever thought her Litany such a masterwork. Against this radiant interweaving of harmonies, it grated. Urthemiel sang no words, but poured forth melodies that built through wild fugues of unimaginable complexity, crashing masses of chords like thunder, poised on the line between dissonance and harmony. The voices were multitudes, but they swirled around a single column progressing upwards, until nothing could be heard but the great unity of sound, weaving around Rilian in an ecstasy of terror and wonder and anticipation.

The light grew brighter; Rilian squinted as it expanded. When the ice spell released her, she slumped weakly to her knees. Whiteness thinned her world to an infinite nullity - she fought to stay conscious because she couldn't bear to stop _hearing. _She listened to the rising chorus as the dying darkspawn below and the Architect - multitudes added to multitudes - wove around the single bell-like voice that showed them the way in endless upward-mounting ascents of song. _This is what he truly __sought_, she thought, _what he died for_... If this _was _death? It felt more like life. Up and up the sound scaled, in pitch and power; till the chords, for all their tremendous size and weight of voices, drove into her brain as piercingly as the stalactites. Innumerable voices, drawing closer and closer together, chords resolving, twining, into a single strand that would have broken the hardest heart, forged into one terrible ecstatic union.

Then, rising as though out of the rock itself, came Urthemiel, on glowing silver wings. A spirit again; flesh no more. The Architect and the horde joined it as together they soared into the light. Only Rilian was left outside, in profound silence. Though her eyes and ears worked perfectly, she was blind. She was deaf. She saw the brooch she had worn had melted away - taint burned by the cleansing light - that the patches of corruption on her skin were burned away too. She had been part of a realm of unbearable beauty, only to find herself, once more, cast down into the grey dust-shrouded earth. All that remained of those glorious creatures were the misshapen monstrosity that had died half-way through its failed transformation and the decaying hulk in its silent boneyard. She knew they were dead because she couldn't hear the Song anymore.

An eternity passed before she recovered enough sanity to pick her way, slow and stumbling, across the rubble, moved by blind instinct to retrace her steps. She could sense no darkspawn, and the inhuman vision she had possessed was gone. She held up her left hand and Boann's bracelet lit the way.

Crying for the Song that was no more; her thoughts echoing in wells of silence.

For Duncan's life tapering to the grave.

For Boann's anguished screams.

For the Children who would never sleep, never dream, never love.

With Maric's blade in her right hand and Boann's bracelet in her left, Rilian turned her back on the Deep Roads and their horde of sleepless dead.

For life.

**- Fin -**

_Song inspirations were:_

_Rilian's Journey: Depeche Mode - Waiting For The Night To Fall_

_The Ultimate Sacrifice: The Cult – Black Angel_

_AN: After some thought, I've decided to end this story here. It feels right that the deaths of Urthemiel and The Architect should be the climax. The reunions, political machinations, Landsmeet et al will form the first chapter of the sequel._

_Yes, Kardol's lines in Ortan Thaig are a shameless rip-off of Leonidas' in 300! Couldn't resist :) _

_The Sons Of Dreams will focus on a larger group of characters, including Ril, Loghain, Alistair, Anora, Morrigan, Leliana, Jowan, Ser Otto, Aveline, Carver, Rylock, Wynne, Channon, Fergus, Nathaniel, Zevran and Anders. It will cover:_

_DA2 with Nathaniel Howe as Champion._

_The birth of the mage-Templar community in the Temple of the Ashes, and how they deal with the ripples of the mage-Templar war begun in DA2 and Asunder._

_The "missing years" between Leliana as we know her in DAO and the Chantry Seeker we meet in DA2. She didn't get enough screen-time in DATM and I regret that._

_The conflict between Ferelden, Orlais, The Qunari, and Tevinter._

_The Templars and Wardens uniting against the darkspawn._

_And most of all it will be the story of Rilian and her "Wardens of the Grail" and their search for a cure for taint and the ending of the Blights. It will take them to the Vimmark Mountains, Weisshaupt, Tevinter, the ruins of Arlathan, and further._

_I can't believe that what started as a four-chapter Landsmeet retelling has taken two years of my life! :) __Words cannot express how much I have appreciated your support, reviews, faves, alerts and PMs. I particularly want to thank:_

_Arsinoe, who has been with me from the first chapter to the last._

_Josie Lange. Congratulations on the birth of Alexis Grace!_

_Shakespira - for her brilliant "Dark Stewards" theory from The Lion's Den._

_Tyanilth - I can't wait for you to update "Hour of Prophecy"!_

_analect and icey cold: two partners-in-crime who will be, as the Terminator put it, back :) I've loved bouncing ideas!_


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